Jury selection to begin for man charged in 2022 New Kensington murder

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday morning in the murder trial for a Washington County man charged with a 2022 fatal shooting in New Kensington.

Larry Osborn Nix II, 47, of West Brownsville is charged with criminal homicide in connection to what prosecutors contend was a revenge killing in the parking lot behind Kensington Arms Apartments in the 400 block of 11th Street.

That’s where the body of James Michael Hayes, 31, was found Dec. 9, 2022, with a gunshot wound to the head.

The case against Nix was the first to come from a Westmoreland County grand jury that was seated for 18 months before being dissolved late last year. Prosecutors convened the county’s first grand jury in decades to hear evidence in unsolved cases.

According to court records, witnesses told the grand jury Hayes’ murder was a result of a series of incidents that involved Nix and included allegations of an attempted robbery and another shooting.

Prosecutors contend Hayes attempted to shoot Nix in retaliation for a robbery days earlier and Nix hunted and gunned down Hayes in revenge for the failed murder attempt.

Witnesses testified before the grand jury that a man who matched Nix’s description fired on Hayes after he stopped his vehicle to retrieve a jacket from its trunk.

Police said 41 rounds were fired from three guns, all a distance from where Hayes’ body was found.

Nix, in court documents, has contended he was not the person who shot and killed Hayes. Defense lawyer Ned Nakles has argued prosecutors cannot produce witnesses who can positively identify Nix as the man who fired the fatal shots.

Assistant District Attorney Katie Ranker Ellwood during a pretrial hearing last month said evidence that linked Nix to a robbery and that he was previously targeted in a shooting were key aspects in the case.

“It provides the motive for the homicide,” Ellwood said.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio ruled evidence that Nix robbed Hayes was inadmissible, but jurors can hear testimony that Hayes was accused of attempting to shoot Nix.