INDIANA, Pa. (AP) - A man has been convicted of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and cleared of robbery and conspiracy in the sword slaying of a man that Pennsylvania authorities alleged occurred during a dispute over drug money.
Jurors in Indiana County deliberated for more than seven hours before reaching a verdict just before midnight Friday on the charges against Michael Eades, 45, in the September 2014 death of Tyron Howard, 37, of Blairsville The (Altoona) Mirror (https://bit.ly/2t5miGW ) reported.
Eades testified earlier that he had nothing to do with the slaying and that he waited outside the victim’s house while his companions entered to buy drugs. State police accused him of plotting with the others to rob and kill Howard because he contended he was owed $100,000.
Prosecutors relied on the testimony of two co-defendants who said Eades almost immediately orchestrated an assault in which the victim was tied up with electrical cord and another man stabbed him with the huge sword from a collection displayed in the living room. Police alleged that Eades then took the sword and repeatedly stabbed the victim, finally leaving the blade stuck in the back of his skull. Howard’s friends later found him there and police recovered a sword with a 22-inch blade.
Defense attorney Robert Manzi challenged the credibility of co-defendants Kevin King and Stanley Boynton and reminded the jury that Eades had cooperated with police when they sought interviews about the slaying. He also cited surveillance video from a store after the murder that showed Eades wearing a clean white shirt, not one that would have been splattered with blood from the kind of assault the co-defendants described.
District Attorney Patrick Dougherty, who sought a first-degree murder conviction, said jurors likely had difficulty with the credibility of the co-defendants “but at the end of the day, Eades was found guilty of directly causing Tyron Howard’s death, which is what we believed from the very beginning of this case.” He said his office would honor plea agreements in which King, 34, is to plead guilty to third-degree murder and Boynton, 37, to involuntary manslaughter.
A fourth defendant, Deandre Jones Jr., 32, of Baltimore is scheduled for trial in August on homicide, robbery and conspiracy charges.
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This story has been corrected to note the dateline is Indiana, Pa. rather than Altoona, Pa.
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Information from: Altoona Mirror, https://www.altoonamirror.com
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