McKeesport man, convicted as teen of triple murder, wins new trial

At his son’s sentencing hearing in 2011, Trent Hereford told reporters the jury got it wrong when they convicted the 18-year-old of a triple murder in McKeesport.

“My son was not there,” insisted Hereford. “They convicted an innocent man.”

Now, more than a dozen years later, his son, Isaiah Hereford, who is in prison serving 45 years to life, will get a chance to prove his late father was right.

On Friday, a Pennsylvania Superior Court panel granted Hereford a new trial based on newly discovered evidence — an eyewitness to the attack who didn’t come forward until 2020.

“(I)t is likely that (the) testimony that Hereford was not one of the shooters, would result in a different verdict,” the court wrote.

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office said Monday that it was considering its legal options and could not comment.

Within 14 days, the prosecution could ask the three-member Superior Court panel to reconsider its decision or ask for the case to be heard before all nine of the court’s judges. It has 30 days to ask the state Supreme Court to take up the case.

Hereford, who was 17 at the time, was charged, along with DeAnthony Kirk, of killing Jahard Poindexter, 30, Angela Sanders, 23, of Wilkinsburg, and Tre Madden, 17, of McKeesport, at a birthday party at an apartment in McKeesport’s Crawford Village, on June 15, 2010.

Madden’s brother, Marcus, was shot in the head but survived. Poindexter’s sister, Brittany Poindexter, was there but not injured.

Shortly after 1 a.m., two men knocked on the apartment’s screen door. It was presumed to be someone looking to buy cigarettes or marijuana as Jahard Poindexter and Marcus Madden were known to sell out of the apartment.

When Marcus Madden approached the door, witnesses said two armed men burst inside, demanding money.

The gunmen then opened fire.

Hereford was charged two days later after a witness identified him to police. Investigators also obtained phone records that showed Kirk called Hereford multiple times in the hour leading up to the shooting.

The case went to trial before now-retired Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Donna Jo McDaniel in August 2011.

Although Brittany Poindexter testified that she could not identify either shooter, Marcus Madden said that Hereford was the first gunman, and that he did not have his face covered. He also said that the first gunman was 5 feet 10 inches tall and was taller than the second shooter, identified as Kirk.

However, at trial, Hereford’s defense attorneys failed to enter into the record that Hereford is either 5 feet, 5 inches tall or 5 feet, 6 inches.

Hereford testified that, although he had visited the apartment earlier that night to buy two marijuana cigars, he was not there at the time of the shooting.

He testified that he was at the nearby home of his girlfriend.

Hereford, of McKeesport, was found guilty of three counts of second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory penalty of life in prison without parole.

However, Hereford was a minor at the time of the crime. A year after his sentencing, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles could not receive a mandatory life sentence, and Hereford’s penalty was reduced to 45 years to life.

He is currently being held at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset. He is 31 years old.

Following his conviction, Hereford filed several appeals, losing each time.

However, he filed a petition in June 2020 alleging that there was a previously unknown witness.

His new attorney, Rob Perkins, had gotten a letter from a man named Quentin Ingram, who said that he saw the two men who went to the apartment that night, and neither one was Hereford.

In February 2022, Common Pleas Judge Kevin G. Sasinoski, who took the case over after McDaniel’s retirement, held a hearing on the new evidence, including testimony from Ingram.

Ingram, who is serving a 76- to 152-year prison term for third-degree murder, testified that he was in Crawford Village the night of the shooting and was on his girlfriend’s porch when he saw two men approaching the apartment where the triple slaying occurred.

“Ingram testified that the two men were taller than him, wearing dark clothing, had shirts tied around their faces, and were darker-skinned than Ingram,” the Superior Court recounted.

Ingram said that he followed the men and watched as they “bum rushed” the door.

He almost immediately heard gunshots and fled.

Ingram said he saw police arrive but did not speak with them; he was not permitted to be in Crawford Village because he was a convicted drug dealer. Had the police known he was there, Ingram testified, his girlfriend could have lost her home.

At the hearing, Ingram testified that neither of the men he saw that night was Hereford.

“Ingram testified that he could not identify either of the two men; however, he was certain neither man was Hereford due to the height and weight discrepancies, as well as both shooters having darker skin tones than Hereford,” the Superior Court recounted.

Sasinoski denied Hereford’s appeal in March 2022, finding that Ingram’s testimony was not credible considering his life sentence for murder and the long delay in coming forward.

“Additionally, the court does not believe that the outcome of the trial would differ even with the proposed after[-]discovered evidence,” Sasinoski wrote. “This claim is without merit.”

But the Superior Court panel criticized Sasinoski’s conclusions.

Instead, the appellate court said Ingram’s explanations for not speaking to the police at the time — and then coming forward 10 years later — were credible.

Ingram testified that coming forward did not benefit him but allowed him to clear his conscience.

“‘You know, it kind of makes me feel better coming forward saying what happened,’” Ingram testified.

The Superior Court also noted that Ingram said no one paid him, intimidated him, incentivized him, or otherwise induced him to testify.

The appellate court also found that Sasinoski did not analyze the overall strength of the evidence against Hereford in reaching his conclusion.

“Ingram’s testimony is supported by the record, and offers new probative evidence regarding the identification of the gunmen,” they wrote.

The three-judge panel said that Sasinoski did not engage in the required legal analysis to address newly discovered evidence but instead reached a “conclusory” determination that the evidence would not have changed the trial’s outcome.

Sasinoski failed to address the facts of the case, relevant case law and the discrepancies between testimony at trial of the two surviving victims, the judges wrote.

“Accordingly, it is clear from this testimony that it is not Ingram’s ‘opinion’ that Hereford was not the same height as the first gunman, but rather a fact corroborated by other witnesses,” the Superior Court said. “We conclude that Ingram’s testimony is of such probative value, and is not merely cumulative or corroborative, and that it would likely result in a different verdict.”