'We were already strong,' mother of some Wilkinsburg massacre victims says
Jessica Shelton stood quietly among her large family and looked at the Wilkinsburg home where three of her children, her niece, her friend, and her unborn grandson were ambushed and killed last month.
She smiled.
“We were always strong,” she said of her family. “Nothing is keeping us strong. We were already strong.”
On March 9, two gunmen opened fire on her family's cookout in the backyard of the home on Franklin Avenue. One fired from the alley behind the yard, fenced in on both sides, driving the crowd toward the back porch door as the only possible escape. A second gunman in a walkway alongside the house caught them in execution-like crossfire with an AK-47-style rifle.
Killed were Brittany Powell, 27, who was renting the home; Chanetta Powell, 25, and her 8-months-along unborn son Demetrius; Jerry Shelton, 35; Tina Shelton, 37; and Shada Mahone, 26.
For some members of the Shelton and Powell families, Tuesday evening's vigil was the first time they'd been to the home. They walked around the left front of the house and down the narrow walkway — which was used by the second gunman — to the backyard.
There, a single bouquet of pink and yellow flowers marked where the six died.
Maurice Trent, with the Lighthouse Cathedral church in Pittsburgh's St. Clair neighborhood, helped organize the vigil.
He pleaded for anyone with information about the shooting — one of the worst in Allegheny County history — to come forward.
“Call. Speak out,” he said. “This family needs justice.”
Jessica Shelton said the children who lost parents — 11 of them among the five adults killed — need closure.
“They don't understand why their parents are gone,” she said.
She vowed to visit the home each month until the killers are caught.
Allegheny County police last week indicated publicly for the first time they could be closer to doing so.
Robert Thomas, 27, was officially named a suspect after his arrest April 5 on drug charges from 2013.
Investigators have questioned 29-year-old Cheron Shelton — unrelated to the victims, police say — at least twice in relation to the killings. He remains in jail on unrelated charges.
Jessica Shelton said at the vigil that donations that began pouring in immediately following the massacre will be put toward the future of the 11 children who lost parents.
“They are future lawyers. They are future doctors,” she said. “They can be anything they want to be now because of this community.”
Megan Guza is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. Reach her at mguza@tribweb.com or 412-380-8519.
