Jury convicts two defendants in 2017 killings; third man found not guilty

Oct. 22—SOMERSET — A Somerset County jury on Friday found two defendants guilty of the March 2017 kidnapping and murder of two area men, but decided a third defendant was not guilty.

The verdict capped off five days of testimony about the killings of James Smith, 32, of Portage, and Damian Staniszewski, 19, of Duncansville.

Defendants Samson Washington, 30, and Marekus Benson, 32, were each found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder — one for each victim — and of kidnapping, unlawful restraint, aggravated assault and conspiracy.

Washington was found not guilty of one charge of criminal use of a communications facility. The prosecution had linked data from a certain cellphone used around the time of the crimes to Washington — but the phone was a "shared phone" that was available to any of the defendants, including prosecution witness Devon Wyrick, 27.

The defendant found not guilty by the jury was Deandre Callander, 29, who already had been partially acquitted of the charges against him.

Somerset County Judge Scott Bittner scheduled a Jan. 4 sentencing for Washington and Benson.

Prosecutors from the state Office of Attorney General used witness testimony to show that Washington, Benson, Callander and Wyrick were connected with an Ohio-based gang and were selling drugs in Johnstown in 2017.

Smith and Staniszewski had allegedly robbed a "stash house" in Johnstown's 8th Ward used by the defendants, who then hunted the men down, kidnapped them, murdered them and left their bodies in the woods off Ligonier Pike in March 2017, according to the prosecution's case.

Bittner threw out most of the charges against Callander on Thursday after deciding the prosecution had not met the burden to sustain those charges.

The judge let counts of conspiracy and kidnapping against Callander go to the jury, which found him not guilty of those charges after two hours of deliberation.

Wyrick had testified on Wednesday that Callander wasn't present when Staniszewski and Smith were kidnapped and killed.

"From Day One, we've maintained he's had no involvement in this," Callander's attorney, Matt Zatko, said after the verdict came back. "I commend the jury for listening to all the evidence, sorting through and coming to the correct decision."

Wyrick, who is Washington's brother, also faces homicide charges in the case, though in a separate court proceeding. Wyrick sought a plea deal prior to the trial and faces two third-degree murder charges in exchange for his testimony in the trial of the other three.

In her closing argument before the jury began deliberations, Washington's attorney, Jaclyn Shaw, urged the jury to be critical of witness testimony, and especially of testimony from Wyrick, who she said jurors probably remember the most out of all the witnesses.

Among the lies Shaw alleged Wyrick told was that he only kept clothes at the stash house that was robbed by the victims. In fact, the drugs and money stolen from the house belonged to him, she said.

She also asked the jury to consider Wyrick's testimony about the murders alongside the testimony of Staniszewski's father on the first day of the trial.

Wyrick testified that he, Washington and Benson used Staniszewski's truck to transport the victims to the site of their murders, where they took Smith into the woods, but forgot Staniszewski in the truck.

Wyrick said Benson shot Smith in the back when he tried to run. He testified that when they realized Staniszewski was still in the truck, they brought him to where Smith was, and Washington shot them both in the head twice.

But Staniszewski's father said that when his son's truck was recovered from the side of Somerset Pike soon after the disappearances, there was a deer rifle under the back seat.

"Damian is just sitting alone in the car with a loaded rifle and doesn't defend himself? It doesn't make sense, because (Wyrick) is lying to you," Shaw said.

Following the guilty verdict against Washington, Shaw made a motion for a retrial. Bittner denied it.

For the prosecution's closing argument, Deputy Attorney General Kara Rice sought to fortify the jury's trust in Wyrick's testimony, noting that he testified against his brother while knowing that he will still be convicted for his role in the crimes.

Wyrick faces two counts of third-degree murder, with no agreement on what his sentence will be, she said.

"He told you only what he saw, and he put himself squarely in the murders," she said.

By the conclusion of the trial, she said, a variety of witnesses, including Wyrick, had given the same story, which she said was corroborated by cellphone records of defendants' communications and general locations around the time of the murders.

Rice said that while the defense wanted the jury to focus on minor discrepancies among the witnesses' testimonies, the facts remain unchanged: "The defendants' drugs were stolen. They worked together to hunt the victims. They worked together to kidnap and murder James and Damian."

She displayed photos of Wyrick, Benson, Washington and Callander on the TV screen in the courtroom before the jury went to deliberate.

"These four drug dealers belong to the same gang in Ohio," she said. "They came to Johnstown to sell drugs, and they said, 'We are not going to tolerate James and Damian interrupting us.' "

She said their motive for the murders was clear.

"They wanted revenge, and they wanted to show that they run the streets in Johnstown and there are consequences," she said. "Now the tables have turned. They face the consequences."