District attorney faces six homicide prosecutions in next four months
Six criminal homicide cases are currently pending in Fayette County Court and District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon said she hopes to clear the list in the next four months. Vernon said she had hoped to try one case in October, but Herbert Carl Herrington’s lawyer, Mark F. Morrison, said earlier this week that the discovery of a potential new witness means he needs additional time to prepare the case.
The witness, whom Morrison did not identify in court, is in an out-of-county jail.
Delays in homicide trials are not uncommon, but Vernon said that the delay of Herbertson’s trial, “is going to force the commonwealth to do six murder trials in four months” to get them in before the cases expire.
Herbertson, whose case was delayed until December, is charged with fatally stabbing Charles Edward Cramer, 28, at a Point Marion party on Nov. 16. The men were reportedly fighting over a woman.
Herrington, 24, of Point Marion reportedly used a knife that his girlfriend, Melissa Masi, brought to him to stab Cramer while they were on the ground fighting.
Vernon offered Herrington a general plea to first-degree murder, but he has opted to go to trial. He also lost a bid to have statements he reportedly made to state police admitting the stabbing suppressed.
With that trial delayed until December, Vernon said she is looking to try Torey Vaughn Peterson, 22, of Allison in November. Peterson is accused of fatally shooting 23-year-old William Eric Mason on Jan. 11.
Vernon also expects to conduct the retrial of Franklin Joseph Weimer that month.
Weimer, 34, is awaiting his second trial in the 1998 death of 2-year-old Zachary Johnson. He allegedly beat the child to death with a shower brush. He was convicted of third-degree murder, but the conviction was reversed because his attorneys were not allowed to present a medical report contradicting that theory of death.
With Herrington’s trial tentatively scheduled for December, Vernon is unsure if her office will also attempt to take Nathaniel Stites to trial that month as well.
Stites, 24, allegedly brutally stabbed Christopher Kiss 42 times in the kitchen of Kiss’ 107 Coolspring St. home last October. Vernon said his case is still pending the decision on a hearing that asked that statements he made to police be suppressed.
In January, Vernon said she hopes to try Mark Duane Edwards Jr., the Uniontown teen who allegedly killed four members of the Bobish family in April.
Larry Bobish Sr., his wife, Joanna, their daughter, Krystal, and her unborn son were shot to death, then the family’s North Union Township home was burned. Larry Bobish Jr. survived the attack and named Edwards as his attacker, according to police.
Edwards is the only one of the pending homicide suspects who is facing the death penalty.
In January, Vernon plans to try Thomas Edward Miller II, who is accused of fatally shooting Charles David Springer, 28, of Ronco on May 12. Miller, 31 of Masontown, allegedly shot at Springer after a verbal confrontation. The shot went through Springer, and into his stepfather, Andrew Scott King, who survived the attack.
Miller allegedly fled to Ohio after the shooting and was arrested several days later.