In the early hours of a Wednesday morning in Stowe Township, Pennsylvania, the life of a talented tattoo artist was tragically cut short. Bryan Jackson, a 31-year-old African American male, was fatally shot on May 8, 2019, in the very place he both lived and pursued his passion. The incident unfolded around 2:30 a.m. inside his residence in the 100 block of McKinnie Avenue, which also served as his tattoo parlor.
On that morning, Jackson had just completed a tattoo for a client,
25-year-old Terrance Murphy of Stowe. In a sudden and violent turn of events, Murphy allegedly shot Jackson at least twice immediately after the tattoo session was finished. The sudden gunfire sent a witness scrambling for safety, climbing out of a bedroom window and onto the roof of an adjacent building to escape the chaos.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Jackson on the second floor of the residence suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but his injuries proved to be fatal, and he was pronounced dead.
The investigation into the shooting quickly pointed toward Murphy as the primary suspect. Descriptions provided by the witness, which included distinctive tattoos on Murphy—one above his left eye reading 'Trinity' and another depicting the face of Jesus behind his right ear—were instrumental in his identification. Later that same day, detectives with the Allegheny County sheriff's fugitive squad located and arrested Murphy at a home in Ambridge. He was subsequently charged with one count of criminal homicide and taken to the county jail for arraignment.
