May 11, 2022 5 min read

Testimony in Anthony King’s homicide trial in Greene County Court ended Tuesday afternoon with a surprise decision by the defense to play cellphone video showing King fatally shooting William Worry III in the face.

The four-minute video was shot from the end of a long hallway inside King’s trailer at 145 Alicia Main St. in Monongahela Township, and it shows the moments leading up to the 2019 killing and the panicked aftermath as Worry lay bleeding and dying.

King can be heard inviting Worry in “for a glass of tea” that he appeared to say sarcastically to their mutual love interest, Alicia Pressacco, who was moving children’s toys and belongings out after she broke up with King. Worry came into the trailer to help remove a Barbie Dream House play set at Pressacco’s request, which prompted King to confront him, as King had made previous comments that Worry wasn’t welcome inside the trailer.

King, who set up his cellphone video to record, can be seen in the video walking down a hallway with the shotgun to his right side before telling Worry to leave.

“Better get the (expletive) out of my house, dude,” King said. “I’m telling you.”

Worry then turned toward King while holding the dollhouse near the front door and beginning to argue with him.

“You think that gun is going to scare me? You better realize who the (expletive) I am,” Worry said. “Come on. Come on. You just invited me into your house. Shoot me. Shoot me. Come on.”

King then immediately fired the shotgun and Worry crumpled to the ground as the dollhouse fell to the floor and pieces scattered around him. The video does not show graphic details of the shooting, but some elements of it can be made out. A woman who is believed to be Pressacco can then be heard screaming in the background.

“Are you (expletive) kidding me? Oh my God. Oh my God,” Pressacco said before she tended to Worry and referred to him by his nickname. “Spank, are you OK? Spank, are you OK?”

Worry, 23, died minutes later from the single shotgun blast to his face following the shooting in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2019.

It was not known why the defense decided to introduce the video after spending more than three years leading up to the trial successfully working to suppress it from being played to the jury. However, it appeared to be part of their defense Tuesday in which they called 12 witnesses and attempted to paint Worry as an abusive boyfriend to Pressacco while he also assaulted people during multiple incidents in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Tanner Barton, who was a friend and neighbor to King, testified that he gave his shotgun to King after speaking to him on the phone hours before the shooting. He said King was afraid because Worry had previously threatened him and now he was accompanying Pressacco and another woman, Melissa Lindsay, to pick up the belongings from the trailer.

“I could tell in his voice that he was scared,” Barton testified. “(Worry) was coming down and he wanted his gun, well, a gun.”

But after Barton walked the shotgun over to King’s trailer, the two began bantering back and forth through text messages about what King was preparing to do.

“I will blow his (expletive) kneecaps off and shove a quarter-stick of dynamite in his mouth,” King wrote in one message.

“Shooting deer gets old,” King wrote in another message.

Later that night, King sent Barton a short message about what had happened.

“I killed him,” King wrote.

Barton testified that he thought King was “boasting or talking big” and that he never thought he would actually kill Worry. Barton also admitted that he was likely under investigation for providing the firearm used in the fatal shooting and that he was concerned he might eventually face his own charges as an accomplice.

“I didn’t think anything would happen,” Barton said.

The defense paraded a range of character witnesses on to the stand speaking favorably of King for what he did for the Monongahela Township village of Alicia where he lived, along with the future he was trying to build with Pressacco.

Kim Barton, who considered herself a surrogate mother to King and let him live in her nearby home for a couple of years, said he was “head over heels” for Pressacco, even though they only dated a few months. King thought he was having a child with Pressacco, although a paternity test after the shooting showed it was Worry’s child.

Both Barton and her husband, Tom, testified that Pressacco was fearful of Worry, although she continued to go back to him over and over again.

Rebecca Jenkins, who is Pressacco’s aunt, said her niece wanted to have a protective order taken out against Worry after he assaulted her while she was pregnant with a previous child. Worry also stood outside her home in Alicia and threatened the Jenkins family, she testified. She accused Pressacco of being promiscuous and telling Worry about her relationships with other men to get him angry, while she also complained about his controlling behavior.

Jenkins, who blamed her niece for causing the fatal shooting, said King thought he was building a life with her when she left him.

“He thought he was losing everything. The love of his life, his kids, (Pressacco’s) kids,” Jenkins said. “He was broken.”

After the cellphone video of the shooting was played, a list of assaults that Worry was charged or convicted of was read for the jury. The defense then closed its case without calling King to the stand.

Closing arguments are set to begin this morning, and the jury is expected to begin deliberations immediately after. King, 24, is facing felony charges of homicide and aggravated assault, along with two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.