Jury Sees Site Of Fatal Mon View Heights Shooting
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Allegheny County Sheriff's vans brought jurors to the Mon View Heights housing complex in West Mifflin Thursday morning.
They were to get a firsthand look at the place where prosecutors say then-20-year-old Richard Krista allegedly gunned down Cody Ruder and Joseph Sherrill nearly two years ago.
When he was arrested, police said he shot them in the head and that a witness told them Krista and Ruder had been in a gun battle months before.
But jurors who heard the case late last year could not reach a unanimous verdict about what happened in the housing complex back in May of 2012.
That trial ended in mistrial.
"It made me realize that they all realized that it was beyond reasonable doubt. Like all the jury members, most of them thought it was beyond reasonable doubt," said Ramona Krista, the defendant's mother.
Ramona Krista came to West Mifflin, too, as the jury viewed the scene out of the view of the general public.
She declined to show her face on camera, but did say she thinks the issue of the identification of the gunman will help her son's case once the jury has seen where everything was to have happened.
"I hope that the jurors go there and they see the scene and have enough sense to see that my son was innocent," said Ramona Krista. "That if they put the story together, they will be able to tell it doesn't make sense on what they're trying to say. The direction that my son ran in, if you see the scene you would actually be able to put it together more so. I'm hoping that once they see this they can get a better idea of what could have happened."
Meanwhile, the defense begins to put on its case for this jury Friday.
RELATED LINKS:
Suspects Sought In Penn Hills, West Mifflin Shootings (5/12/12)
Suspect In Fatal West Mifflin Shooting Arrested (5/19/12)
More Reports by Harold Hayes