By Paul Peirce
Tribune-Review
PITTSBURGH — An Indiana County jury heard testimony Wednesday that an inmate at a state prison may have strangled his cellmate over a $30 debt.
William Brown, 20, of Upper Darby, Delaware County, is on trial on charges that include homicide and aggravated assault stemming from the killing of Jayson Stewart, 29, of Arnold on Feb. 28 while both were inmates at the State Correctional Institution at Pine Grove in Indiana County.
Danielle Rockey, of Emporium, Cameron County, testified that she received a letter from Stewart the day before he was killed, pleading with her to pay debts of $20 and $30 he owed two inmates, including $30 owed to Brown.
First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Dougherty showed jurors the letter via an overhead projector.
“I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t serious. That’s all I’m saying,” states the brief letter dated Feb. 25. The letter contained both inmates’ prison account numbers.
Brown and Stewart were cellmates for three days in a restricted housing unit when the killing occurred.
State police allege that Brown covered windows in the cell with paper on the evening of Feb. 27 or early morning of Feb. 28, when the attack occurred. Police allege Brown used a razor blade to cut Stewart’s face and tongue, then put a sock in his mouth to try to suffocate him.
When that didn’t work, Brown attempted to suffocate Stewart with a pillow, police allege. Brown then wrapped a sheet around Stewart’s neck, tied it and pulled on it until Stewart died, police said.
Under cross-examination by Brown’s attorney, Fred Hummel, Rockey said she previously had paid two other small debts Stewart owed other inmates for losses in “card games.”
Jurors also listened to an interview Brown gave to state police, including investigator Trooper Deana Kirkland, in which he admitted he killed Stewart, who formerly lived in Jefferson County. Brown claimed he killed Stewart in self-defense.
In the recording, Brown disputed claims that Stewart owed him money and that other inmates urged him to kill Stewart.
“I did it for myself. It wasn’t gang (expletive). ... He tried to cut me first,” Brown said in the tape recording. “It was just me and him. I was worried for my life. ... I didn’t plan this. ..,” Brown said.
Questioned further about the debt mentioned in the letter, Brown again denied that Stewart owed him money.
“He (Stewart) said he would look out for me (in prison). The way he talked, it was like he was rich,” Brown told investigators.
Stewart was serving a two- to four-year sentence for criminal conspiracy. Brown is serving 20 to 40 years after being convicted of attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery and possessing instruments of crime during a botched robbery on Feb. 20, 2008.
Brown and an accomplice, Marquis Alford, now 21, of Philadelphia attempted to rob a man, and Brown shot him in the shoulder. Police caught the pair attempting to rob a second man nearby, according to news reports.
The trial will resume this morning before President Judge William Martin. Dougherty rested the prosecution’s case against Brown yesterday.
Hummel is expected to open Brown’s defense this morning with testimony from a psychiatrist.
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