LANCASTER, Pa. — A 22-year-old man will spend the rest of his like in prison after killing a man and injuring another on Father's Day in 2019.
Officials say at 12:36 a.m. on June 16 on the 600 block of Lafayette Street in Lancaster Shawn Connelly shot two men.
According to the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office the victims, at the time 44-year-old Anthony Marshall, and his son, 25-year-old Tyquane Christian, tried to break up a fight at a party between Connelly and another man.
After the fight, Marshall and his son left the party, later crossing paths with Connelly and three other men, where Connelly pulled a gun from his waistband and shot five bullets at the victims.
Responding to reports of shots fired, police found Marshall with a gunshot wound to the chest and Christian with gunshot wounds to his arm, both were taken to Lancaster General Hospital, where Marshall was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
In September, 2019, Connelly, who was already an inmate at Lancaster County Prison on unrelated charges, was charged with the shooting.
After a three day trial, a jury convicted Connelly of four of his original five charges, including one count of first degree homicide, one count of attempted first degree homicide and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure.
“[The victims] didn’t go looking for trouble that night,” Assistant District Attorney Mark Fetterman, who prosecuted his 20th homicide trial, said during his closing argument. “Trouble found them. All Anthony Marshall did was stand up for someone and he got shot down because of it.”
Connelly was originally also charged with firearms not to be carried without a license, but the charges were dropped because officials never found the gun used.
Though his sentencing is at a later date, the mandatory sentence for criminal homicide in Pennsylvania is life in prison.
