Erie teen pleads guilty to 1st-degree murder in gang-related shooting of Kasir Gambill, 13

The second of two defendants in the gang-related killing of 13-year-old Kasir Gambill pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in Erie County Common Pleas Court on Monday, ending the prosecution of the case just as jury selection was to begin in his trial.

The defendant, Deangelo J. Troop Jr., now 18, pleaded guilty less than two weeks after his co-defendant, James I. Garcia, pleaded guilty on Sept. 28 to third-degree murder. Garcia's cooperation was among the reasons Troop decided to plead guilty, his lead lawyer, Eric Hackwelder, said at the plea hearing.

Erie County Judge John J. Trucilla accepted the plea and set sentencing for Dec. 4. Troop, who remains incarcerated at the Erie County Prison, faces a maximum sentence of life plus 47 years in state prison, but he could also get a sentence as low as 35 years in state prison.

Troop said little at the hearing. He said he understood his rights and was pleading guilty voluntarily.

Troop and Garcia, who is also now 18, were both 15 when Gambill was shot in the head as he was trying to climb a fence to evade gunfire at East 20th Street and Franklin Avenue in Erie at about 9:25 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2020. Kasir, who had just left a relative's house, was shot three times and died at a Pittsburgh hospital 10 days later.

The intended target of the shooting was a 17-year-old boy who was with Gambill, police said. The 17-year-old was connected to an Erie gang called the Stacked Bread Boys, while Troop and Garcia were members of a rival gang called the Five, or the 5ive, according to statements at the plea hearing.

Kasir's death marked another deadly example of violent crime among Erie juveniles, many of them connected to street gangs. Both Garcia and Troop were charged with firing the shots that led to Kasir's death.

Charged as a juvenile, Troop faces a range of sentences

Troop and Garcia were charged as adults because of the violent nature of their crimes. But because Troop was a juvenile when the killing occurred, he will not face mandatory sentences of life in prison with no parole for first-degree murder — the penalty for adults.

For defendants who were juveniles when charged, a conviction for first-degree murder, a premeditated killing, carries a minimum sentence of 35 years to life for defendants 15 to 17 years old. Troop also faces an additional 23½ to 47 years in state prison for the three other charges to which he pleaded guilty on Monday. They are the first-degree felonies of aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy to commit homicide and the third-degree felony of carrying a firearm without a license.

The Erie County District Attorney's Office dropped five charges in the plea bargain. The prosecutor, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jeremy Lightner, did not offer a recommended sentence as part of the deal.

Troop's status as a juvenile when he was charged gives his lawyers, Hackwelder and Douglas Sullivan, the ability to ask Trucilla to sentence Troop in a range, starting with 35 years to life, which, imposed, would make Troop eligible for parole after he serves 35 years. If Troop had been convicted at trial, he would not have received credit for pleading guilty and would have likely been exposed to a harsher sentence.

"There is a lot of room here," Hackwelder said after the plea hearing, referring to a minimum sentence of 35 years and a maximum sentence of life on the first-degree murder charge.

Pleading guilty to first-degree murder and the other charges represented "the only option to make sure we get the best outcome for our client," Sullivan said.

Co-defendant pleaded guilty to third-degree murder

Troop's guilty plea benefits Garcia, his co-defendant, who pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, an unpremeditated killing with malice, as well as the first-degree felonies of aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy to commit homicide.

Garcia faces as much as 80 years in state prison at his sentencing before Judge Trucilla on Nov. 14.

At Garcia's plea hearing, on Sept. 28, Lightner, the prosecutor, said the District Attorney's Office would recommend a sentence of 14½ to 40 years in state prison if Garcia testified truthfully at Troop's trial — or if Troop pleaded guilty.

The evidence against Garcia and Troop included surveillance video, ballistics analysis and an examination of social media posts.

"The level of investigation by Erie police in this case was impressive and overwhelming," Lightner said after the plea hearing. "It allowed us to bring to justice two people who a committed a horrific act by hunting rival teenagers with firearms."

More violence linked to Troop, Kasir's death

Troop is already serving a state prison sentence of 3½ to seven years. He was sentenced in January, after he pleaded guilty in September 2022 to being one of three people who sprayed the neighborhood at East 22nd and Reed streets with 56 bullets at about 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022.

Investigators said Troop and two others fired the 56 bullets toward two people. Some of the shots hit Holy Trinity Catholic Church, at 2220 Reed St. A priest was inside at the time. No one was injured.

"One of the most dangerous juveniles in Erie," is how a prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Emily Downing, described Troop at his sentencing in the shooting case.

Troop had not yet been charged in Kasir Gambill's killing when he fired the shots in Holy Trinity's neighborhood. He was arrested in that case in June 2022.

Kasir's death led to more violence in Erie. In response to the killing, Kasir's father, Danny Nicholson II, went on a shooting spree that included the murders of two people on March 3, 2021, at Bogey's Tavern, 2105 Buffalo Road.

One of the murder victims, Jason D. Wells, 41, was the father of Erie resident Jayzhon Goodwin, 21. The District Attorney's Office and Erie police identified Goodwin as a leader of the Five, the gang whose members included Troop and Garcia, according to court records.

Nicholson, 40, pleaded guilty in July 2022 to six charges, including two counts of third-degree murder. Erie County Judge Daniel Brabender sentenced him in August 2022 to 45 to 90 years in state prison.

Brabender called the fatal shootings of Wells and the other victim, Mauris Pacley, 37, "revenge killings," and he criticized Nicholson for choosing violence to deal with the death of his son.

"Street justice is illegal," Brabender said.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Second of two Erie teens pleads guilty in murder of Kasir Gambill, 13