Suspect charged in Waynesburg shooting ordered to stand trial
WAYNESBURG — A Waynesburg man facing multiple charges after being arrested for his alleged involvement in a robbery and shooting last month was ordered to stand trial on all charges during his recent preliminary hearing.
Kody Alan Scott, 21, of Waynesburg was arraigned on March 28 before Magisterial District Judge D. Glenn Bates after being charged with one felony count each of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault; one misdemeanor count of theft; and a summary count of harassment.
Waynesburg Borough police said Scott and another man, Cody D. Jannenga, 21, of Piney Flats, Tennessee, were charged in the incident that resulted in Johnathan C. Fannon being shot in the thigh Monday night during a home invasion at his apartment on South Morris Street while his wife and baby were inside.
During Scott’s preliminary hearing on April 6, Fannon, 27, testified that he, his fiancee, Brandi Stump, and their 17-month-old daughter had arrived home at around 10 p.m. that evening and he noticed a couple of people standing outside and wearing dark clothing.
Fannon said the family was “winding down after a long day” and was putting their daughter to bed when they heard a knock at a side door; Fannon said he was in the hallway holding the baby as Stump answered the door; when he did not hear her saying anything after she opened the door, he went to investigate and saw a suspect standing inside holding a gun.
Fannon said he thought the weapon was fake, and that it was metallic and silver and looked “abnormally large” for a real gun; he also said the suspect holding the gun was wearing a hoodie with “something covering his face.”
Fannon said he hid his baby in a closet to keep her safe, returned to confront the suspect and tried to wrestle the gun from him, at which point he noticed a second suspect was in the apartment; he said he began pushing the suspect holding the gun into the bathroom when he got shot in the back of his left upper thigh, at which point the suspect said to him, “Give us all your stuff.”
Fannon said the next several minutes were “kind of a blur,” but he remembers grabbing for the gun and one suspect holding his arms while the other suspect struck him in the head multiple times with brass knuckles, causing lacerations and resulting in the three men falling down the steps.
“I remember just trying to get the gun away from him, because I kept thinking about my fiancee and daughter,” he testified. “Over and over again in my head, all I could think about was what would happen to them if I lost this fight.”
Fannon said the fight spilled down the steps and into the kitchen, and the suspect was going to hit him again as he screamed, “Give me all your (expletive).”
At that point, Fannon said, he gave the suspect a pill bottle containing prescribed Subutex and told them to leave.
Fannon said as the suspects attempted to leave the apartment he saw one of the suspects take off his mask; when asked if he could identify the suspect, Fannon said “yes” and pointed to Scott.
Fannon testified that police and an ambulance arrived soon after the suspects left, and he was transported to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va. for treatment of injuries.
According to the criminal complaints filed against Scott and Jannenga, when police arrived at the scene they found Fannon lying outside on the patio as his neighbor’s girlfriend was attempting to stop the bleeding.
Fannon said his recovery has been “a daily process” and he is now able to walk, though he has a limp and has been unable to return to work since the incident.
When asked if he and his fiancee knew either suspect prior to the incident, Fannon said he had never met Scott before the incident but his fiancee knew Jannenga because she “sold him pills in the past.”
Stump did not testify during the preliminary hearing; however, in the criminal complaints police said that during their investigation Stump said she immediately identified the shooting suspect as Jannenga, who she sold Subutex pills to earlier in the day.
Waynesburg Borough Police Officer Tom Ankrom testified that the gunshot was confusing, because the entrance and exit wounds were similar in size, which he initially “thought was strange,” but it was determined that the fired shot blasted out multiple BB pellets into Fannon’s thigh.
Scott did not testify during the preliminary hearing.
Following testimony, Bates ordered all of the charges to be held for court. He is scheduled to be formally arraigned on the charges in Greene County Court on April 23. He remains in Greene County Prison in lieu of a $75,000 straight bond.
Jannenga recently turned himself in to authorities in Tennessee and is awaiting extradition to Greene County to be arraigned on multiple charges, including one felony count each of criminal attempt to commit homicide, robbery, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy to commit theft; one misdemeanor count of theft; and one summary count of harassment.