May 4, 2022 5 min read

Anthony King set a “trap” for William Worry III when he shot him in the face at point blank range with a shotgun, the prosecution alleged in opening arguments at his homicide trial, while the defense contended King feared for his safety when he fired his weapon inside his Monongahela Township home.

“You’re going to see what murder is. You’re going to see what it means for someone to get shot in the face point blank,” Greene County District Attorney David Russo told the jury at the start of the trial Tuesday morning. “It was a trap. I’m going to show you it was a trap. It was more than premeditated. It was a plan.”

King is accused of fatally shooting Worry in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2019, while inside King’s home at 145 Alicia Main St. near Greensboro. King, 24, is on trial this week in Greene County Court facing felony charges of homicide and aggravated assault, along with two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.

Worry and another person were helping Alicia Pressacco move some of her belongings out of King’s trailer when the shooting occurred. Pressacco previously had dated King, but they had broken up a few days before and she went there to retrieve some items, mostly toys for her two children.

Worry stood outside the trailer during most of the moving period while King was in a back bedroom as the two others moved items, but near the end of the move Pressacco asked Worry to carry a Barbie Dream House play set out of the residence. As Worry was carrying out the play set, Russo said King came out of a back room, told Worry to leave and pointed his shotgun at his face.

Worry turned his head and King fired the shotgun from less than 10 feet away, Russo said, striking Worry above his upper lip. Worry, 23, of Smithfield, Fayette County, died at the scene.

Russo said he planned to provide evidence during the trial showing that King sent messages to others that he was “gonna blow his head off” if he ever saw Worry.

“And that’s what he did,” Russo said, adding that he was pursuing a first-degree murder conviction.

Russo talked about the memories Worry lost in not being able to raise his young child he had with Pressacco, or see the baby the couple had conceived together and wouldn’t be born until months after his death.

“Everything a man was, everything a man is and everything a man could be. … That’s the impact of taking those memories away. I’m going to prove that man took those memories away from William Worry,” Russo said while pointing toward King. “Mr. King, the defendant, was lying in wait.”

King’s public defender, Harry Cancelmi, admitted that his client committed a crime that night, but he said during his opening remarks that it was not murder. Cancelmi called Worry “a tough guy and he wanted to show it” in the days leading up to the incident. He said his client was adamant when talking to Pressacco that she not to bring Worry to help her collect her belongs, and that he would not be permitted inside the house.

“As that day approached, everybody knew William Worry was not welcome in that trailer by Anthony King,” Cancelmi said.

But when they showed up in the early hours, King refused to let Pressacco inside, Cancelmi said. That’s when King heard a man’s voice threaten that they would come inside one way or another, Cancelmi claimed.

“Open this door or we’ll be back. I’ll be back with my dad,” Cancelmi quoted the man outside the trailer saying, who King believed was Worry.

King eventually let Pressacco in, and she and a friend, Melissa Lindsay, carried most of the items out. When Pressacco asked King if Worry could come in to help move the play set, King responded sarcastically that he could come in for tea, which Cancelmi said was an obvious indication that Worry was not welcome inside. Cancelmi said his client was afraid when he saw Worry in the hallway, and that’s why he fired the shotgun.

“Everybody knew there was going to be trouble because Anthony King was desperately trying to protect what he was building with Alicia Pressacco,” Cancelmi said.

After opening remarks, the jurors listened to a 911 call from Pressacco moments after the shooting in which she sounded hysterical as she described the scene to an emergency dispatcher.

“My ex-boyfriend just shot and killed my baby’s dad,” Pressacco told the dispatcher. “I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”

The first day of testimony was nearly upended in the afternoon when President Judge Lou Dayich called all of the witnesses into the courtroom while the jury was on break and admonished some of them for speaking to each other about the case despite being sequestered.

“We were told certain witnesses were talking to other witnesses, and they should not be talking to each other,” Dayich said. “You can’t talk to each other. It’s not supposed to be that way.”

Dayich allowed testimony to resume Tuesday afternoon, and the trial is expected to continue Wednesday morning.