Accused shooter acquitted of homicide in 2021 killing at Luzerne Township house
An Allegheny County man was acquitted of homicide following a two-day jury trial this week in connection with the 2021 killing of a Uniontown teen at a house in Luzerne Township.
The jury deliberated for less than an hour Tuesday afternoon at the Fayette County Courthouse before returning a not guilty verdict on all charges against Quincy Andrew Sloan, who was accused of fatally shooting 19-year-old Damani Wilson.
State police investigators had accused Sloan and two other unidentified masked men of luring Wilson to the house at 270 Keeny Row Road in Luzerne Township in the early hours of June 10, 2021, and killing him. Wilson was found dead later that day with a gunshot wound to his head.
In addition to the acquittal on the homicide charge, the Fayette County jury also found Sloan not guilty of felony charges of criminal conspiracy in aiding homicide and criminal use of a communications device. Sloan, 27, of West Mifflin, was immediately released from custody after being held without bond at the Fayette County jail for more than two years following his arrest in late July 2021.
“I think it was a fair verdict. I think it was the right verdict,” Sloan’s defense attorney, Patrick Thomassey, said Wednesday. “I don’t think he did it.”
Robert Franklin Glover III, who also was also charged in connection with the case, testified Tuesday against Sloan. He told the jury that Sloan ordered him to call Wilson in an attempt to lure the teen to the Luzerne Township residence where the shooting took place. However, Glover and a woman he was with were ordered by the three masked men to leave the house before Wilson arrived, meaning there were no witnesses to the killing.
In exchange for his testimony, Glover accepted a deal from prosecutors to plead guilty to criminal use of a communications device, and the charges of homicide and conspiracy to aid in homicide were dropped. Glover, 34, appeared through video conferencing Wednesday when he was sentenced by Fayette County Judge Joseph George Jr. to serve 15 to 30 months in jail. However, since Glover had been jailed since his arrest more than two weeks following the shooting, he was given credit for time served and released from the Greene County jail – where he was being held – following the hearing.
Glover said little during the sentencing except to answer George’s questions about the plea deal and subsequent sentence. Assistant District Attorney Melinda Dellarose told George that her office approved of the plea bargain because prosecutors believe Glover provided “truthful testimony” at Sloan’s trial. Dellarose added that the victim’s family was aware of the plea deal and accepted it.
“We believe his involvement in the homicide was limited to the phone call,” she said.
George, who also presided at Sloan’s trial, said he agreed with that assessment in accepting Glover’s plea and sentencing him to time served.
“By all accounts, his involvement was, in his terms, ‘He was threatened (by Sloan) to call the victim,'” George said, recounting Glover’s testimony.
The two other masked men who were at the house when Wilson was killed have never been identified and investigators do not have any other suspects in the case.