Sheriff deputies and Tarentum police on Tuesday captured a woman whose disappearance caused month-long trial delay for a New Kensington man charged in connection to a 2022 murder.
Amelia Lewis, 55, of Brackenridge, Allegheny County, remains lodged in Westmoreland County Prison. She is scheduled to appear before a judge Thursday morning to determine whether she remains in custody until she is called to testify in the July murder trial of Larry Osborn Nix Jr.
Nix, 47, of West Brownsville, Washington County, was set to go to trial in June for the Dec. 9, 2022 shooting death of 31-year-old James Michael Hayes. Police said Nix sustained a fatal head wound. His body was found in the parking lot behind Kensington Arms Apartments in the 400 block of 11th Street.
Westmoreland County prosecutors contend 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 from a distance from where Hayes’ body was found.
Nix has maintained his innocence since his arrest last year.
The trial for Nix, who was the first person charged based on evidence presented to a Westmoreland County grand jury, was postponed earlier this month after prosecutors reported Lewis, a key witness in the case, could not be located.
Lewis, according to court records, was expected to testify for prosecutors and link Nix to a robbery and revenge shooting that led to Hayes’ alleged murder.
“Lewis’ testimony at trial is necessary to provide evidence of the defendant’s motive and to establish the defendant as the shooter,” Assistant District Attorney Katie Ranker Ellwood wrote in court documents filed in late May.
Lewis, prosecutors said, was a reluctant witnesses who initially resisted service of a subpoena before she was detained on a material witness warrant prior to appearing in court last June to testify at Nix’s preliminary hearing.
Efforts to serve Lewis a subpoena to appear in court for the Nix murder trial originally scheduled to begin June 1 had been unsuccessful. According to court documents, Lewis last month told detectives she would not attend the trial and in the weeks that led up to the court date she was unable to be located.
Westmoreland County Chief Deputy Sheriff Jen Shipley said Lewis was detained without incident at a Tarentum home after a two-week search by sheriff deputies and Tarentum police.
Lewis will appear Thursday morning before Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio for a bail hearing.
Jury selection for Nix’s murder trial is now scheduled to begin July 13.