MERCER COUNTY Murder case will delay trials of 2 teenage boys

Jeremy Melvin and Anthony Machicote will go to trial in October and November.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
MERCER, Pa. -- A decision to try a Sharon man accused of killing his estranged girlfriend has pushed back the trials of two teens accused of killing a George Junior Republic night security counselor.
James Epstein, Mercer County district attorney, said Anthony C. Teague, 33, of Baldwin Avenue, Sharon, will be tried during the criminal trial term, which begins Sept. 13.
Epstein said his office prefers to try only one murder case per term, and that means the cases against Anthony Machicote, 17, of North Versailles, Pa., and Jeremy Melvin, 17, of McKeesport, charged in the slaying of George Junior counselor Wayne Urey, 43, of Mercer, won't be tried until October and November.
Both had been named on the trial list for this month.
The two teens are being tried separately as adults but won't face the death penalty.
Melvin will be tried in October, and Machicote will go to trial in November, Epstein said.
They are charged with criminal homicide, robbery, theft, conspiracy, aggravated assault and escape in the Nov. 10, 2003, slaying of Urey.
Teague's case
Teague is charged with criminal homicide in the death of Tedda Otey, 31, of Youngstown, in Teague's home Jan. 12.
Witnesses testifying in a preliminary hearing against Teague said he admitted killing Otey, the mother of his four children.
The couple had lived together for years, but Otey moved out shortly before the slaying and took the children with her to Youngstown.
She came back to Teague's home to pick up prescription medication for the children, authorities said.
When Otey refused Teague's overtures to move back in with him, he shot her twice and then shot himself in the chest in an apparent suicide attempt, authorities said.
He then fled the scene in Otey's car and was arrested the next day at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, where he had gone to seek treatment for his wound.
Escape plan
Machicote and Melvin, who had been sent by a court to George Junior, a detention and education facility for juvenile male offenders near Grove City, plotted to escape the ungated facility by overpowering Urey and stealing his truck, authorities said.
Police said the teens admitted attacking Urey as part of their escape plan but said they didn't intend to harm him.
They knocked him down, tied and gagged him and stole his truck keys.
They fled to Pittsburgh, where they surrendered the next day after learning Urey was dead.
An autopsy showed Urey died of asphyxiation consistent with suffocation and strangulation. He also suffered multiple rib fractures, injuries to the head, trunk and extremities, fractures to the bones in his neck and various contusions and abrasions.