Trial begins for suspect in killing of 3

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

A man is on trial on third-degree murder and other charges in a Thanksgiving Day police chase that authorities said ended when he collided with a car that burst into flames, killing the driver, his fiancee and her toddler daughter.

Demetrius Coleman, 24, of Pittsburgh is charged in Allegheny County in the November 2016 crash in North Versailles about 2 miles from where police in East McKeesport had stopped him for making an illegal left turn.

Officer Norman Locke, a now-20-year veteran of the force, described pursuing the vehicle through 18 intersections along Route 30 before the fleeing car broadsided a car at a busy intersection, causing carnage that he called “the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that relatives of the victims gasped and began dabbing at their eyes Friday as they watched a video from a nearby restaurant showing Coleman’s car speeding into the intersection and plowing into the side of the victims’ car, which erupted into a fireball.

Killed were three members of a Pitcairn family on their way to a holiday dinner: David Lee Bianco, 29; Kaylie Meininger, 21, his fiancee; and their daughter Annika, 2.

Coleman is charged with three counts of third-degree murder, vehicular homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, fleeing police, driving under the influence and other charges.

Assistant District Attorney Douglas Maloney said he planned to show that Coleman committed “extreme, sustained recklessness. He didn’t brake, he didn’t slow down, he didn’t swerve or anything else.”

Defense attorney T. Brent McCune said Coleman knows he needs to be accountable for the other crimes, but not murder.

He said the case would turn on whether the accident resulted from criminal liability “other than cold-blooded murder.”

“You’re going to have to decide whether Mr. Coleman contemplated this fireball could happen and Mr. Coleman didn’t give a damn,” he said.