Suspects identified in Donora convenience store homicide
State police released photographs of the two suspects who fatally shot a worker at a Donora convenience store Feb. 24.
Devell Dexter Christian
Sidney Devon McLean
Nicholas Tarpley was making a sandwich for a customer when two masked men walked into his Donora convenience store and fatally shot him in the back, according to a surveillance video played during Monday’s preliminary hearing for the two suspects charged in his killing.
Tarpley could be seen in the video working in the store’s deli when he was shot in the back before he twisted around to defend himself and was shot several more times, stumbling a few steps and falling to the floor, slumped behind the counter.
Tarpley, 28, died at the scene inside Anna Lee’s Convenience Store at 501 Allen Ave. after being shot six times in the trunk and thumb, Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco testified at the preliminary hearing. A teenage girl and a customer were also in the store at the time of the shooting, but were not harmed.
Sidney Devon McLean, 32, of McKeesport, and Devell Dexter Christian, 31, of White Oak, were identified for the first time as suspects in the Feb. 24 killing after homicide and firearm charges had been sealed following their recent arrests. Both were ordered to stand trial in the case following the nearly two-hour hearing before District Judge Mark Wilson.
Trooper Adam Janosko testified that Christian’s “on-and-off” girlfriend Anitra Banks identified both of them while being interviewed in July at the state police barracks in Greensburg, although it was not made public why she was there or how the two men were originally suspected in the homicide.
“That’s Sid. That’s Devell,” Janosko said Banks told him during the interview when he showed her surveillance videos and still photographs from the scene of the two masked men.
But Banks was a reluctant witness during Monday’s hearing, breaking down on the stand as she was sworn-in to testify. First Assistant District Attorney Jason Walsh questioned her about a news article showing the surveillance video photograph of the two men, noting that Christian had asked her to search for it using the internet on her phone because unnamed people thought he resembled one of the suspects.
“He showed me an article … about a murder,” Banks said, adding that “people (were) accusing him of that.”
While Walsh asserted during his closing argument that Christian admitted to the killing – which is also included in court documents – Banks denied on the stand that he ever told her that.
“He never told me he participated in it. … People thought it was him,” she said.
Christian’s attorney, Ken Haber, asked if Banks felt “pressured” and “coerced” to testify by investigators, which she said she did.
“The same thing they did to me that day, they’re doing now,” Banks said, apparently alluding to investigators requiring her to testify.
She left the hearing surrounded by security and wearing an electronic ankle monitor, although Walsh declined to say whether she was in custody.
Prosecutors introduced evidence showing McLean wearing the same red knit hat in a photograph saved on his cellphone as one of the suspects in the shooting. Janosko testified that Banks told him during the interview that she recognized the eyes of both defendants in the surveillance camera photograph.
But little information has been released about the case with the criminal complaint and affidavit of probable cause – which were filed against both men on July 12 – being sealed under a court order until 15 minutes before the preliminary hearing for the defendants’ lawyers to review. That made for several testy exchanges between Haber and Walsh as they argued back and forth through much of the hearing.
“We’ve had no opportunity to prepare because we didn’t know what (the affidavit) would contain,” Haber said.
“It appears the police had no leads and didn’t know who the suspects were,” Haber argued unsuccessfully on why Wilson should dismiss the charges. “There is no evidence my client did this or did anything at all.”
McLean’s public defender, Josh Carroll, said no testimony provided during the hearing connected his client to the killing.
A motive in the homicide has not been released, although Walsh indicated that the suspects may have been targeting someone else and that Tarpley was in the “wrong place at the wrong time.” Tarpley was a co-owner of the convenience store while also working as a cook at Speers Street Grill.
McLean and Christian are being held without bond at the Washington County jail while they await trial.