Prosecutors: Arnold fatal shooting took less than 30 seconds
Oct. 19—Westmoreland County prosecutors said it took a New Kensington man less than 30 seconds to park his car in an Arnold alley, walk into a townhouse wielding a gun, push over a woman, shoot and kill an unarmed man and return to his car.
Assistant District Attorney Katie Ranker told a jury Tuesday that Mario Gatti acted on a lingering dispute with another man when he fired two shots that killed Michael Coover Jr., 33, of Brackenridge on Jan. 16, 2020.
"Just nine seconds after the defendant enters the residence, shots were fired," Ranker said.
Gatti, 33, is on trial this week charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, burglary, multiple counts of making terroristic threats and reckless endangerment and illegal gun possession.
Ranker said Gatti and Coover had been at odds for several months and that the men exchanged numerous threatening text messages before the fatal shooting.
The prosecution claims Gatti walked into the 17th Street home of Coover's girlfriend where her sister, parents and children lived.
Witnesses contend Gatti pushed Coover's girlfriend away as he entered a kitchen and fired two shots from a semiautomatic handgun, then pointed the weapon and threatened to kill two women as they attempted to shield an infant from him.
"My sister jumped up and tried to stop him," testified Martina Warren. "He came in with a direct intent to go to the kitchen. He didn't stop or anything."
Warren told jurors she watched as Gatti shoved her sister to the ground and heard the first shot fired. She testified she believed Coover then threw a pot of grease from the kitchen stove at Gatti before he fired a second shot.
Coover was found wounded on the kitchen floor, she said.
"He was laying on the ground trying to breathe when my sister called the ambulance, but he was gone before they got there," Warren testified.
Prosecutors said an autopsy revealed Coover suffered a grazing wound to an arm and a second fatal shot that struck him in the chest, went through a lung and perforated his spine.
Police say surveillance video from multiple neighborhood cameras detailed Gatti's movements before and after the shooting and recorded him discarding a weapon into another vehicle before he drove away.
County Detective John Mandarino testified Gatti was almost immediately identified as a suspect in the shooting but they couldn't find him for months. Mandarino said that more than three months after the shooting, police, acting on anonymous tips, arrested Gatti on a beach in Jacksonville, Fla.
Assistant Public Defender John Sweeney told jurors that Gatti did not intend to kill Coover.
"On Jan. 16, 2020 he went into that residence, and when he came out 30 seconds later, a man was dying on the kitchen floor. What we are going to say is that when he went into the home he had no intent to commit any crime, let alone first-degree murder," Sweeney said in his opening statement.
The trial will continue Wednesday.
Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Rich by email at rcholodofsky@triblive.com or via Twitter .
