May 12, 2022 5 min read

Anthony King was convicted Wednesday of voluntary manslaughter in the February 2019 shooting death of William Worry III, but the Greene County jury acquitted him on both first- and third-degree murder charges following the seven-day homicide trial.

The conviction on the lesser charge elicited an emotional response from Worry’s family as the verdict was read and the victim’s relatives left the courtroom. Several state police troopers were called to the entrance of the Greene County Courthouse for precautionary purposes, although there was no incident.

As King was led away in handcuffs from the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies, he briefly spoke to his relatives who were gathered in the gallery just behind him.

“I love you guys,” King said.

There was never a dispute over whether King fatally shot Worry in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun inside King’s trailer at 145 Alicia Main St. in Monongahela Township on Feb. 14, 2019. However, the jury determined it was not premeditated, nor done with malice. In addition to voluntary manslaughter, King was also convicted of felony aggravated assault and two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.

“Whether I agree or disagree with the jury’s verdict, I respect their decision,” Greene County District Attorney David Russo said.

Earlier in the day, both sides made closing arguments in which Russo tried to paint King as a cold-blooded killer while the defendant’s attorney, Harry Cancelmi, said the victim had previously threatened King.

Cancelmi called the victim a “menace” multiple times during his closing arguments as he tried to frame the situation as one in which Worry was the aggressor.

“(Worry) was someone who sought to bully others. Everyone knew who William Worry was and he advertised it on his fists,” Cancelmi said of Worry, who had the words “love” and “fear” tattooed on each hand.

Cancelmi argued that Worry threatened King on the phone hours before the shooting, and previous assaults on other people made his client fearful of what would happen that night. He also blamed Alicia Pressacco, a mutual love interest between the two men, for her behavior that led them to meet that night, and that she knew King did not want Worry in his house as she moved children’s toys and belongings from the residence.

“She’s the one who (brought) the drama and trouble,” Cancelmi said.

In the last few moments inside the trailer, Cancelmi said Worry took an aggressive stance against King, who was holding a shotgun, and then he threatened him once more while daring him to shoot. Cancelmi said Worry “terrorized” others, and he asked the jury to be lenient toward his client after examining the totality of the case.

Cancelmi also painted King as a “good kid” who never caused any trouble. Cancelmi talked about how King’s “dreams” of a life with Pressacco and raising children together turned into a nightmare when she left him without any explanation and then brought Worry over to help her move out.

During Russo’s closing statements, he played a brief cellphone video of the shooting to make his case why the jury should convict King of first-degree murder. Russo argued that King was in a “jealous rage” and was planning to kill Worry the whole time as it became clear Pressacco was leaving the relationship and taking her belongings from his trailer in the Monongahela Township village of Alicia.

“He’s going to eliminate the competition is what he’s going to do,” Russo said.

He reminded the jury that King told multiple people that he planned to “blow his (expletive) head off” before confronting Worry with the shotgun and killing him.

“He said he was going to do it, and he did it,” Russo said. “There was no delay. He walked out of that bedroom with the intention of shooting William Worry in the face. … Oh, this was a trap.”

With the cellphone video of the shooting playing on a large television monitor for the jurors, Russo walked around the courtroom holding the shotgun used in the killing as he narrated the incident and re-enacted King’s movements in the trailer.

After the fatal shot was fired at Worry’s face while he was carrying a Barbie Dream House play set out of the trailer, Russo directed the jury to continue watching the video as King pumped the shotgun and then hovered over Worry’s body to make sure he was dead. After the video ended, Russo told the jury King should be found guilty of first-degree murder because it was premeditated and later executed in the exact manner in which he told people it would happen.

Worry, 23, of Smithfield, Fayette County, died at the scene.

“If you ever wondered what (first-degree murder) looked like, you just saw it,” Russo said of the video.

But the jury disagreed and acquitted King of the most serious charges. King, 24, has been held without bond at the Greene County jail since his arrest following the shooting. He will be sentenced by President Judge Lou Dayich at a later date.