Calvin Crew had so many choices.
He could have chosen to leave his girlfriend’s gun home that night, the prosecutor said.
He could have chosen not to press its barrel into the back of the Uber driver’s head as they arrived at his destination in Penn Hills, she continued.
Even then, she went on, Crew could have chosen to stop at just robbery by taking Christina Spicuzza’s cellphone and dashboard camera and leaving.
He even could have chosen to just let the 38-year-old mother of four out of the car.
But he didn’t, Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Emma Schoedel told the jury Friday before they began deliberations.
“He had multiple chances to make this anything short of a lethal endeavor,” Schoedel said. “He killed Christi because he wanted to.”
Crew, 24, of Pitcairn is charged with criminal homicide, robbery, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and carrying a firearm without a license.
Prosecutors said Crew killed Spicuzza around 10:20 p.m. on Feb. 10, 2022, in a wooded area off Rosecrest Drive in Monroeville. Her body was found two days later by a passing delivery driver.
Crew’s lawyer, Allegheny County Chief Public Defender Andy Howard, pushed back in his closing argument on any notion that his client had a motive to kill Spicuzza.
“Lack of motive is excellent circumstantial evidence of lack of intent,” he said.
The jury began deliberating around 1 p.m. and left for the day around 4:30 p.m. They will return Monday morning.
Victim’s last fare
Three days after Spicuzza’s body was found, detectives recovered her dashboard camera discarded and leaning against a chain-link fence on Dersam Street in Penn Hills.
Analysts downloaded the footage, which showed a man wearing a black mask, winter hat and hood get in the vehicle at 9:14 p.m.
After about 20 minutes, the passenger slid into the middle of the back seat, put the gun to Spicuzza’s head and ordered her to keep driving.
She pleaded with him repeatedly to stop.
The video ended when the attacker ripped the camera off the dashboard.
Spicuzza was killed less than an hour later.
During the investigation, detectives identified Crew as a suspect after they learned that the last Uber ride Spicuzza provided that night had been ordered by his girlfriend.
They tracked Crew’s movements, along with Spicuzza’s, through the use of cellphone records, GPS locators and multiple video surveillance cameras — all of which were introduced as evidence at trial this week before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski.
A case for second-degree murder
Howard told jurors during his closing that watching the video from inside Spicuzza’s car is among the hardest things he’s had to watch in his career.
“That video and this robbery are horrifying, truly skin-crawlingly horrifying,” he said.
But, he continued, they don’t prove that Crew intended to kill Spicuzza.
“Tragedy and scariness are being used as a replacement for motive and intent,” Howard said. “That is why second-degree murder exists — for those cases. For these cases.”
He suggested to the jury that if his client is the perpetrator, he would have isolated Spicuzza in the woods to get away with the robbery and delay any police response.
But where Spicuzza’s body was found — just 60 feet from the roadway — was not that isolated.
“This isn’t where you go if you are planning a murder.”
Instead, Howard continued, “it absolutely reeks of one ultra-big screwup — a sloppy, ill-planned, disastrous attempt for fast cash.”
Howard also told the jury there was no evidence of what actually happened in those woods.
Were Crew and Spicuzza running, stumbling, tripping? Howard asked.
There’s also no evidence pointing to where the shooter stood before the fatal, single shot was fired.
“We know for sure it was not an execution,” Howard said, noting that Spicuzza did not die from a contact wound.
‘She begged’
After Howard concluded his closing, Schoedel stood before the jury box and told the panel that there was one thing the two sides agreed on — that the case rises to the level of second-degree, or felony, murder.
But she continued, “it was so much more.”
Schoedel spoke for about 45 minutes, explaining to the jury why, she believes, Crew committed first-degree murder.
“He walked her deep into those woods, step by step,” she said. “He pulled that trigger, shot her in the back of her head.”
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Schoedel discounted the defense speculation of an accidental discharge.
“Ladies and gentlemen, was it an accident what you just saw when he intentionally put the gun to the back of Christi’s head?” she asked. “The back of her head was his target from moment one.”
Spicuzza, Schoedel continued, asked for mercy.
“She begged,” the prosecutor said. “Murdering someone after they beg for their life proves he killed Christi simply because he wanted to.”