W. Brownsville man acquitted of murder in New Kensington killing
A Washington County man charged last year in the 2022 killing of another man in New Kensington was found not guilty of murder and other felony charges.
The four-day trial last week for Larry Osborn Nix II at the Westmoreland County Courthouse culminated Thursday night with the jury acquitting him on the most serious charges after deliberating for about three hours.
Nix, 42, of West Brownsville, was accused of fatally shooting 31-year-old James Michael Hayes while in the parking lot of the Kensington Arms Apartments in New Kensington on Dec. 9, 2022.
Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli convened a grand jury to review the case, and Nix was charged last March with homicide, attempted homicide, possession of a prohibited firearm and reckless endangerment. But little was known about the case at the time because the court records were sealed for 60 days and not made public until some point after his preliminary hearing last June.
The case against Nix appeared to be mostly circumstantial, with no witnesses able to identify him at the scene and only traces of DNA evidence matching him to a vehicle reportedly seen near the crime scene. Additional cellphone data from nearby towers purportedly placed him in New Kensington the day of the killing, but was not concise enough to place him near Hayes when the victim was shot and killed.
No one else has been charged in the killing, and it’s not known whether New Kensington police, who investigated the homicide, have identified other potential suspects.
A spokeswoman for Ziccarelli issued a statement that the district attorney’s office respected the jury’s verdict and that prosecutors would continue to use the grand jury process when warranted.
“I absolutely remain confident in future grand jury proceedings; that’s why this case was brought in front of a grand jury, it was a difficult and challenging case to prosecute,” Ziccarelli said in a written statement. “It doesn’t diminish our faith in the judicial system. I applaud our team of prosecutors and detectives and the efforts it took to investigate this case and bring it to trial.”
Nix’s defense attorney, Ned Nakles, declined to comment on the case Tuesday.
The trial before Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio began last Monday and ended Thursday with closing statements and the verdict. While Nix was acquitted on first- and third-degree murder charges and the other felony counts, the jury convicted him of one misdemeanor count of reckless endangerment, although no explanation was given for the split verdict.
Nix had been held without bond at the Westmoreland County jail since his arrest last March, but Bilik-DeFazio granted him $25,000 unsecured bond at the conclusion of the trial and set his sentencing for Oct. 13. Nix was later transported to the Mercer County jail and booked Tuesday afternoon while awaiting trial there on felony gun possession and other charges from December 2022, according to jail and online court records.