PA Bill Number: HB2663
Title: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal.
Description: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGING AND OLDER ADULT SERVICES
Last Action Date: Nov 19, 2024
Pennsylvania: Guilty verdict in Halloween shooting of WCU student :: 03/27/2017
WEST CHESTER - A Common Pleas Court jury found a Honey Brook man guilty of attempting to kill a West Chester University student by firing a shot through a closed door during a Halloween night encounter.
The panel of nine men and three women deliberated about 3 1/2 hours before returning with their verdict around 11 p.m. Friday, convicting James Maurice Cannavo Jr. on charges of attempted first degree murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and prohibited possession of a firearm.
Cannavo, 32, was returned to Chester County Prison, where he has been held since his arrest in November 2015, to await sentencing before Judge David Bortner, who oversaw his five-day long trial at the Chester County Justice Center. A convicted felon, he faces the possibility of a lengthy jail sentence in state prison.
The trial pitted two conflicting versions of the events of the early morning hours on Nov. 1 in the alley outside the carriage house garage apartment that Cannavo rented near the WCU campus.
The defense contended that the shooting was justified because Cannavo believed his life was being threatened by people outside his apartment who were attempting to break down the door and attack him. The prosecution countered that Cannavo had no reasonable justification for the self-defense claim, that he had been able to see who he was firing at because he had a closed circuit camera that showed the scene on the other side of the closed door.
But both sides agreed that a university freshman from Philadelphia who had been celebrating the evening with friends was seriously wounded as he stood outside the door. The student, Fletcher Grady, was shot once in the torso as Cannavo fired a single shot from a .40 caliber handgun he had with him inside the apartment. The bullet tore through his small intestine nd lodged in his colon.
“It was unforgiving,” Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Harrar, who led the prosecution with Assistant District Attorney Caitlin Rice and West Chester Detective Scott Whiteside, told the jury in his opening statement. “Ladies and gentlemen, he almost died.”
Harrar noted that Cannavo had not fired any sort of a “warning shot” at whoever had been outside the carriage house, and who he had heard banging on the metal door — a prop that Harrar used in his opening to demonstrate the shooting. Instead, he fired at the “center mass” of whoever was outside, about three feet from the ground.
“There was nothing nefarious going on,” he said of what Grady and his friends were doing outside the apartment. They were not masked or trying to break the door in. “He was as surprised as anyone that he got shot.”
Defense attorney Evan Kelly of West Chester, who along with attorney Marissa Ramsay represented Cannavo, in his address to the jurors asserted that his client had acted out of fear that he was being targeted, and was trying to protect himself.
“It is a sad case, because James Cannavo’s actions were born out of fear,” Kelly said. “They were not born out of malice, or vengeance.”
Kelly pointed out that Grady and his friends had given inconsistent accounts of what had happened in the seconds before the shot was fired, attempting to downplay what they might have done to provoke Cannavo’s response. The number of times and the force with which they were banging on his door were in dispute throughout the trial.
The incident occurred at about 1:15 a.m. on Nov. 1, the morning after Halloween, when Grady, then 19, was on his way home from parties they had attended off campus that night. The group of five or more walked down Boxwood Alley, a block or so from campus, where a witness said they met up with other friends of Grady’s who told them they were not allowed to enter the party at a nearby sorority house on South High Street.
The witness said that Grady, who had been drinking, grew frustrated and angry at the news, and turned and banged with both hands on the door to a garage he had been standing in front of. He said he then heard something that sounded “like a door closing.” He and Grady began to walk away, when Grady exclaimed that his side hurt and lifted up his shirt.
“I’ve been shot,” he told his friend, before collapsing on the pavement. A friend called 911.
When police arrived on the scene they found Grady lying on the ground, an obvious gunshot wound on his left side, just below his chest. He was alert but had been shot in the torso, the bullet hitting his small intestine and colon. He had to undergo surgery at Paoli Memorial Hospital to remove the bullet.
Police surveying the scene found what appeared to be a bullet hole in the steel door to the garage, about 46 inches from the ground and just to the right of the door knob. Inside, officers found a video monitor that showed activity outside the door, and that was hooked up to a DVR. They also found a quantity of illegal drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, as well as prescription drugs like Oxycodone.
Bortner had ordered evidence of the drugs inadmissible at the trial, permitting the self-defense claim.
Police interviewed the owner of the property, who told them he was renting it to Cannavo. The landlord, Brian Nelson, said that he had spoken with Cannavo the afternoon of Nov. 1 and that Cannavo had implicated himself in the shooting. Detective Lou DeShullo, one of the investigators in the case, quoted Nelson at a preliminary hearing in the matter as saying Cannavo told him “two or three subjects had tried to kick in the door, and that he was scared to death and panicked.”
At the trial, Harrar played a video of the scene outside the door in the alley in which Cannavo could be seen walking by the group of students huddled around Grady as he lay on the ground, not stopping. He got into his car and drove from the scene.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
http://www.dailylocal.com/general-news/20170325/guilty-verdict-in-halloween-shooting-of-wcu-student
