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Judge sends shooting case to trial
A man opened fire after a fight broke out at the club.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — A man accused of shooting three people in March at a crowded nightclub will stand trial after two of the victims gave a harrowing account of their ordeal.
Willie Claren Harden Jr., 21, of Philadelphia was identified as the shooter at the Elks Club on Moravia Street by one of those victims as they testified Thursday at a preliminary hearing in Lawrence County Central Court. A club bartender also testified, and he too identified Harden as the shooter.
After the testimony, Magisterial District Judge Jerry G. Cartwright found probable cause to send the case to the county common pleas court, where felonies are tried. Harden has pleaded innocent.
Shooting victims Michael Harris, 40, of California, and Sherry Huddleston, 44, of New Castle, testified about what they went through March 14 after the shooting started. Bartender Maurice Perkins also talked about what he saw. They described chaos, with panicked club patrons fleeing as a man opened fire after a fight broke out in the back of the room.
Huddleston was sitting at the bar. She was shot once in the leg as the shooter’s arm moved back and forth while he fired at the third victim, Jory Malone, 26, who was on the floor at the time, she said.
Harris said he was shot four times after he tried to help a security guard break up the fight.
Malone, 26, of New Castle, could not testify because of his condition. His father, Billy Malone, testified about his son’s injuries, which included a gunshot wound to the head. He was shot five times.
Perkins said he got to the bar around 11:30 p.m. A short time later, he heard someone say a fight had broken out, and there was a call to turn on the lights. He said that from his position at the bar, he saw Harden “come up from the back of the bar, shooting.” He said he saw Malone and Harris on the floor. Then, he said, he saw Harden run out of the club.
Harris, who was in New Castle visiting someone, said he got to the club that night around 10:30 or 10:45. When the fight broke out, he said, he saw the security guard struggling and went to help.
He was shot four times, including once in the stomach, and was in St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown for two weeks.
“My intestines were taken out,” he said. He suffered nerve damage, he said. “My leg is in constant pain.”
Harris did not identify Harden as the shooter, however.
“It was dark. I didn’t see who shot me. If that’s the dude that shot me, I want justice,” he said, looking at Harden.
Huddleston said she got to the club at 11:35 p.m. She ordered ice water at the bar and it wasn’t long afterward, she said, that “I heard all this hollering and screaming.”
She said she saw Harden shooting Malone, who was on the floor. “His arm shifted, and he shot me in the leg,” she said. She was hospitalized for five days and is still under a doctor’s care, she said.
Billy Malone testified his son spent a month at St. Elizabeth’s. He was shot in the head, chest, under his ribs, through an arm and through a leg.
“He’s still limping. His arm is still messed up,” Billy Malone said.
Harden is charged with two counts of criminal attempted homicide, six counts of aggravated assault, six counts of simple assault, three counts of reckless endangerment and one count of discharging a firearm in an occupied structure.
He was identified as a suspect, said assistant district attorney Daniel Soom, after Shenango Township police indicated two men from Philadelphia who were staying at an area hotel reported they’d had money stolen from their room.
Witnesses had said the shooter was from Philadelphia, according to an affidavit of probable cause on file with the central court.
Harden was found in Texas in April, Soom said. He’s now in the Lawrence County prison on $500,000 bond.