May 1, 2025 By Mike Jones 4 min read

A McKeesport man convicted of third-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a teen asked a Washington County judge for leniency, but she instead imposed a tougher sentence after saying he showed “limited expression of remorse,” along with his prior history of gun violence.

During his sentencing hearing Wednesday morning at the Washington County Courthouse, Jamil Marquise Carr did not apologize to the family of Antonio Martinez, who he shot dead following a fistfight in Washington in July 2022, but rather tried to make a legal argument about his sentence and why he should be granted a new trial.

“That’s not me. I’m not a monster like he’s making me out to be,” Carr said about a pre-sentence investigation report delivered to Judge Valarie Costanzo before the hearing. “I’m asking for leniency, your honor. I’m asking you to make an ethical decision for leniency with the facts surrounding the case.”

But Deputy District Attorney John Friedmann, who prosecuted the case, said it was exactly who Carr was by the simple fact of his history of gun violence and how a jury convicted him of third-degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm during a two-day trial in February.

“This was a fistfight. Mr. Carr brought a gun to a fistfight,” Friedmann said. “That’s all this was. There’s one person who escalated it. It didn’t need to happen.”

Carr’s attorney, Mark Adams, asked for “extraordinary relief” by requesting a new trial over his claims that key witness Glendale Smith’s antics on the witness stand and how Smith was forced to testify against his will may have tainted the trial. It appears that Carr had little to say in court because he is planning to appeal his conviction and did not want statements of guilt on the record.

But Costanzo promptly denied the request for a new trial, and then went above the standard range when she sentenced Carr, 25, to serve 27½ to 60 years in a state prison for killing Martinez.

Carr and Martinez were at a party at the Jollick Manor housing complex in the city July 15, 2022, when the two got into an argument. Martinez punched Carr, who responded by pulling out a handgun and fired twice, killing the 18-year-old Tennessee man.

During the sentencing hearing, Martinez’s family members spoke about how his death has affected them.

Martinez’s grandfather, Nelson Vecchione, described what it was like to get “that dreaded early-morning phone call” notifying them of his death, and how he had to deliver the news to the victim’s younger brother.

“How do you soften the blow to an 11-year-old that his brother has been murdered?” Vecchione said. “That phone call changed our lives.”

He then called Carr a “coward” and looked directly at the defendant, raising his voice as he spoke from the witness stand.

“This is our hell. This is our hell,” Vecchione said, his voice booming louder and louder with every word. “This is our life sentence. And we will never be the same.”

Martinez’s mother, Melody Vecchione, sobbed while speaking about her son and said she cried nearly nonstop for three or four days after his death. She added that her life has been on “autopilot” ever since and that she thought that if she suffered it might ease the pain her son felt in his last moments.

“I never thought my son would be murdered. To hear the words ‘he’s gone’ from my father was like getting hit by a Mack truck at 100 miles per hour,” she said. “To this day, I still feel there is a dagger stabbing me in the heart.”

Martinez’s father, Vincent Cruz, said Carr took someone special from him and stopped short of forgiving his son’s killer.

“It’s not for me to forgive you. That’s (God’s) decision to forgive you,” Cruz said. “But I really hope you find peace in your life. … I live with this every day. Not a day goes by where I don’t think of my son.”

Before reading her verdict, Costanzo called the victim impact statements from Martinez’s family “heart-wrenching” while also noting Carr’s “limited expression of remorse” when given the chance to speak.

“There is no greater grief than the loss of a child,” Costanzo said of Martinez’s death.

Carr has been jailed without bond since his arrest two weeks after the shooting. After the sentencing, he was led away by sheriff’s deputies to the Washington County jail before he is eventually transferred to a state prison.