Man convicted of first-degree murder of teen

A Wilkinsburg man who urinated on a teenage girl after plunging a knife into her throat was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder.

Justin Craig, 32, faces a mandatory life term in prison for the April 2001 slaying of Raquel Carter, 16, of East Hills.

"It doesn't bring my daughter back," said Carter's mother, Chris Brown, of East Hills, after the Allegheny County jury announced its verdict. "But he's out of the community and can't hurt anybody else's child."

Carter -- a junior at Taylor Allderdice High School -- was found in a wooded area of Homewood, a broken knife blade still protruding from her neck.

Pittsburgh police arrested Craig last year after a DNA test linked him to a urine stain on Carter's pants. Craig had pleaded guilty in 1999 to a charge of indecent assault in connection with an attack on a woman in Wilkinsburg. Because of that conviction, his DNA profile was entered into a national index used for comparison against evidence found at crime scenes.

Investigators were never able to determine a motive.

Craig's arrest was the first made by a new "cold case" squad comprising two city homicide detectives -- J.R. Smith and Timothy Rush.

Another jury in July convicted Craig of an abuse of a corpse charge but deadlocked on the murder charge, forcing last week's new trial. Defense attorney Christopher Patarini argued during both trials that the urine stain was not enough to prove his client had actually killed Carter.

But a teenager testified at both trials that he saw Carter get into a car with Craig the night she disappeared.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for just more than an hour Friday and yesterday morning before convicting Craig. Common Pleas Judge Kathleen A. Durkin, who set sentencing for Dec. 22, could add one to two years to Craig's life sentence for abusing Carter's corpse.