A Homewood woman will serve four to 10 years in state prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter for fatally stabbing a woman she knew following an hours-long argument.
Maurissa Plummer, 22, did not make any statement on her behalf during a brief plea hearing before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Beth A. Lazzara.
According to a criminal complaint, Plummer and the victim, Raniesha Scott, 27, had been arguing for hours leading up to the stabbing on Oct. 14, 2024.
Early that morning, an anonymous 911 caller said “‘one of the girls is chasing the other one with a knife,’” police said.
Another witness told officers they heard Scott say, “‘you stabbed me,’” to which Plummer responded, “‘I did.’”
Scott was found inside her house on Lyric Street around 5 a.m. with a fatal wound to her chest.
Police found Plummer inside a nearby apartment on Lincoln Avenue, just a few hundred feet away, where she had been staying.
Video surveillance, which included audio, was taken from inside that apartment and turned over to police.
On camera, Plummer admitted to using a pocketknife, the complaint said.
The video showed Plummer entering the apartment at 4:28 a.m., according to police.
At 4:40 a.m., the video captured Plummer saying to people inside the apartment: “‘I just used a pocketknife.”
Another person then said, “‘You’re going to jail.’” Plummer replied she didn’t care and the victim had pushed her.
Detectives arrested Plummer a short time later at the apartment.
A witness told officers the fight began after Scott learned that Plummer and another person were having sex in Scott’s bathroom while her child was in the residence, the complaint said.
The exact relationship between the two women was unclear, but the day before her death, Scott braided Plummer’s hair, according to the complaint.
Defense attorney Aaron Sontz told the judge his client had mental health problems and was drunk when the stabbing occurred.
“There’s no dispute that at the time this offense was committed, both she and the victim were highly intoxicated,” he said.
Since her incarceration, Plummer has participated in drug and alcohol treatment and other jail programs, Sontz said.
No one spoke on Scott’s behalf.
Lazzara, the judge, told Plummer that intoxication and mental illness do not justify her crime.
“This is the worst thing you can do — take someone’s life,” Lazzara said. “Hopefully, you’ll come out of the state prison system better than you went in.”