Feb 25, 2026 By Mike Jones 6 min read

The man accused of speeding in his SUV to a Mon Valley bar in order to shoot and kill a Monessen man as he left the establishment more than three years ago was found not guilty on all homicide charges Wednesday afternoon.

A Washington County jury of seven women and five men took about two hours to deliberate before acquitting Keaundre Crews of first- and third-degree murder in the Oct. 10, 2022, killing of 29-year-old Jaisen Irwin outside of Bob’s Tavern along Route 88 in Finleyville.

Crews, 32, of Fallowfield, sat motionless in his chair as the jury foreman read the verdict before turning to his family and friends seated in the gallery behind him to raise his fist and wave to them in a subdued celebration. Sheriff’s deputies then walked Crews, who was wearing a suit and unshackled, out of Judge John DiSalle’s courtroom and took him back to the Washington County jail where he was to be processed and released after being held without bond since his arrest in November 2022.

Irwin’s family and friends mostly sat silently behind the prosecution’s side of the courtroom as they comforted each other, some becoming emotional over the verdict.

During closing statements Wednesday morning at the conclusion of the five-day trial that began last Thursday, defense attorney Kenneth Haber argued to the jury that investigators were unable to find “a shred of evidence” tying Crews to the killing.

“A theory is not evidence of a crime. They are just that: A theory, a conception, a notion that needs to be proven,” Haber said. “What did the commonwealth do here to take a theory and advance it beyond a reasonable doubt? There’s not one piece of evidence … that connects Keaundre Crews to the shooting and killing of Jaisen Irwin.”

Haber pointed to the fact there was no gun residue found in Crews’ white SUV, and investigators never even tested the interior of the vehicle for DNA evidence to see who had driven it last. He claimed the investigation was done “haphazardly” that left more questions than answers, while the handgun used in the killing was never found.

“They want to say he’s the killer, he’s the assailant in this case,” Haber said. “You’d think they’d test those areas of the vehicle. The lack of evidence is a huge gap in this case. … Was it not tested because they didn’t want that proof of innocence? I don’t know. … You don’t know the answers, and now no one will.”

He noted that a witness living in an upstairs apartment above Bob’s Tavern gave investigators a description of the shooter that did not match Crews, who had been wearing a white track suit when he and a friend got into an altercation with Irwin at Jim’s Bar in Monongahela about an hour before the shooting. The witness told police that the shooter was tall – Crews is about 5-foot-7 – and wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

“The only witness to the shooting doesn’t fit their theory, so their theory needs to take a detour (that) he changed his clothes,” Haber said. “The eyewitness is telling you it wasn’t him.”

Haber went further and pointed to other possible suspects that he claimed were not fully investigated by authorities. Irwin was a passenger in Maurissa Spencer’s car when the assailant came up and fired eight bullets into her vehicle, seven of which struck the victim.

Spencer drove from the scene but stopped nearby to push Irwin’s body out of her vehicle and onto the side of the road, where police found it about 90 minutes later. She then went to her aunt’s house and left her bullet-riddled car behind and called her fiance, Brian Hunter, to pick her up. During that drive home they allegedly disposed of Irwin’s cellphone, which has never been recovered.

Haber called Spencer a “lying, cheating fiancee” because she was in a romantic relationship with Irwin while living with Hunter and their 4-month-old child at the time. Spencer, 27, of South Park, is facing homicide, conspiracy, evidence tampering and other charges as an alleged accessory in the aftermath of the shooting, but is free on unsecured bond and testified at trial. Hunter was never interviewed and investigators cleared him as a suspect.

“They didn’t do their job, and they want you to do it for them,” Haber said of the prosecution. “I’m not going to ask them to clear him. It’s too late for that. But we are asking you to.”

In his closing statements, Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh reiterated a line from his opening argument in which he asked the jury to use common sense in reaching its verdict.

“Use your brain. Use your common sense,” Walsh said. “You do not have to have everything spelled out to you. You do not need to have everything on videotape.”

He pointed to the GPS tracking device in the infotainment system of Crews’ SUV that showed him leaving Jim’s Bar in Monongahela and speeding back to his Fallowfield Township home before returning to Mon City and then going to Bob’s Tavern. The vehicle was at the shooting scene for about seven minutes before leaving just as Irwin was shot at 1:09 a.m. Oct. 10.

“It put (Haber’s) client in the parking lot when the shooting happened,” Walsh said.

Walsh also said surveillance video from Jim’s Bar shows Irwin, Crews and his friend, Elijah White, getting into a fight before leaving, illustrating a motive. Walsh scoffed at Haber’s notion that other people might have been involved in Irwin’s killing, telling the jury that investigators cleared the other suspects before focusing on Crews.

“He’s trying to say a stranger or maybe a spaceman came down and did it,” Walsh said. “The guy who committed this crime has been looking at you the whole time.”

It’s not known when Spencer may stand trial for her alleged role in the aftermath of the shooting, although she is not considered a suspect in the actual killing.