Suspect withdraws plea, faces trial for slaying
On the day he was to be sentenced for third-degree murder under a plea agreement, Troy Edward Mickens said he wanted to take his case to trial. Mickens, 34, of Connellsville, touched the gold cross he wore around his neck as he testified for his attorney, Charles Gentile, that the plea withdrawal was his idea.
Mickens is accused of fatally shooting Randall Lee Jordan in a remote area near Dunbar-Ohiopyle Road in Dunbar Township. Two employees of the state Department of Environmental Resources found Jordan’s decomposed body on Feb. 11, 1993, while they were working in the area.
Jordan’s body was not visible from the road, and state police estimate he was killed sometime between Jan. 7, 1993, and the day the state employees found him.
After questioning Mickens to make sure he understood the court proceeding, Fayette County President Judge William J. Franks allowed him to withdraw the plea and ordered his case listed for trial.
The withdrawal disappointed relatives of Jordan, who have been waiting for justice for nearly 10 years.
“I think it’s terrible,” said one relative, who asked not to be identified.
“You don’t want me to say what I think,” said another relative.
Last May, in exchange for cooperation in an unrelated murder case, District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon offered Mickens a general plea to third-degree murder for the slaying. He took the deal and pleaded no contest to the charge. A no-contest plea means that Mickens could not mount a defense to the charges against him. Franks delayed the plea until Mickens testified in Gerald Powell’s homicide case.
However, during his testimony at Powell’s March trial, Mickens said he intended to withdraw his plea. Since he never motioned the court to withdraw the plea, Vernon filed a motion last month to move forward with his sentence.
Under the law in effect in 1993, Mickens could not have been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for third-degree murder. Current laws allow up to a 40-year imprisonment for that crime.
Since Mickens withdrew his plea, Vernon said she will now seek a first-degree murder conviction based on the theory that Mickens killed Jordan execution style.
“If the testimony of Brian Harbarger is believed, (a first-degree-murder conviction) would be a plausible verdict in the case,” said Vernon.
At Mickens’ preliminary hearing, Harbarger testified that Mickens showed him $5,000 that he had been paid to kill Jordan.
Mickens was arrested in 2000 by the state police Cold Case Squad, which investigates unsolved homicides.
Vernon initially issued notice that she would seek the death penalty against Mickens, but
she withdrew her intent after losing a death penalty case earlier this year.
She said that Mickens now has one year to go to trial on the criminal homicide charge.