Mar 13, 2019 5 min read

A West End man testified Tuesday Brandon Wolowski handed him a gun in a basement the same night as a fatal shooting six years ago.

During the encounter, Wolowski seemed to have “more energy. (He was) more amped up than usual,” Terrance Cohen Jr. said.

Cohen testified during the second day of the trial of Wolowski, 24, of Washington, who could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of fatally shooting 37-year-old Matthew Mathias on the night of Jan. 8, 2013.

The government contends Wolowski killed Mathias during a botched attempt to rob him of his extensive gun collection, which was kept at the house Mathias shared with his girlfriend, Michelle Powell, on the 900 block of Fayette Street.

Washington County Common Pleas Judge John F. DiSalle is presiding over the jury trial, which is set to continue with more prosecution witnesses Wednesday morning. Along with criminal homicide, Wolowski is also being tried on charges stemming from the shooting of Powell – who survived being shot and testified for prosecutors Monday – and robbery.

Under cross-examination by Noah Geary, the court-appointed attorney leading Wolowski’s defense team, Cohen conceded he’d received immunity sometime in the last few weeks in exchange for his help in the case.

Questioned by Deputy District Attorney Leslie Ridge, Cohen testified he had hung out with Wolowski and another man, Jatrevton Bledsoe, earlier in the day. Later, Cohen went to dinner at his father’s house on the 800 block of Addison Street. While he was there, Wolowski allegedly showed up with the gun police identified as the one he’d used in the shooting shortly beforehand.

“Can you hold this?” Cohen recalled Wolowski asking him while they were both in the basement.

Questioned by Ridge, Cohen said he’d been on probation at the time of the shooting, but spoke to police that night without the promise of anything from the government.

Ballistic testing of the gun Wolowski allegedly gave to Cohen later matched it to a bullet removed from Powell. Another witness described that gun as a .38-caliber revolver.

Jurors also heard testimony from Bledsoe, who occupied an apartment next to the house where Cohen’s father lived. That area of Addison Street is about 200 yards from the one where Powell and Mathias were shot.

Bledsoe testified Wolowski, whom he’d known for about a week, arrived at Bledsoe’s residence and asked for a change of clothes before he took off the ones he’d been wearing and put on gym clothes. Bledsoe described Wolowski as seeming more “agitated” than usual that night.

Soon, police arrived. When they searched the apartment, he said they found a gun that belonged to Bledsoe’s then-girlfriend.

City Detective Dan Rush said a third gun, an older semi-automatic pistol, was also found that night in Terrance Cohen Sr.’s house. Terrance Cohen Sr. testified Wolowski had given him the weapon a few days before the shooting.

Police determined Wolowski was at Bledsoe’s based on a call from the elder Cohen to officer Michael Manfredi, who was working in East Washington Borough that night when the report of the shooting came in. Minutes after the first call, Cohen Sr. called Manfredi again to confirm Wolowski was still at the home.

Geary poked at Manfredi’s story, pointing out he’d received the two phone calls, but didn’t write down their contents that night.

He also pointed to the immunity the younger Cohen received for his cooperation, but Manfredi maintained he didn’t know about that arrangement until Geary mentioned it in his opening argument when the trial started.

Rush said on the stand he took photographs to document evidence at various locations police visited that night during the opening stages of their investigation.

He testified there’d been two trails of blood droplets leading out the front door of Mathias’ and Powell’s house. One led across the street to a house where Powell fled before a 911 call was made, and another to the yard beside the house where Mathias was found.

Rush said police found no shell casings at the house. Revolvers don’t eject casings during fire.

He also described a fruitless search for a gun in another part of the same block of Addison where Wolowski allegedly told police at first he’d dumped the gun.

Ridge’s questions covered what police had done with the purported evidence they found. The defense focused on apparent omissions. For example, Rush said police hadn’t sent the weapon allegedly used to kill Mathias to the state police crime lab in Greensburg until October 2018.

Rush also confirmed there’d been no fingerprint or DNA testing of the weapon. The clothes and boots Wolowski shed at Bledsoe’s were also not processed for forensic testing.

“None of his clothing was ever sent to the crime lab, was it?” Geary also asked him.

“It was not,” Rush replied.

Geary also prompted Rush to read from a report he’d prepared based on an interview with Powell two days after the shooting. At the time, Powell suspected Wolowski could have had an accomplice: “Powell didn’t see a second actor but insists that someone was waiting outside,” Rush read from the document.

Prompted by Ridge to elaborate, the detective stressed Powell had never actually seen anyone else there, but said Wolowski did keep looking out through a sliding glass door.

“He just kept acting like there was someone outside,” Rush said.