On a September evening in 2015, 15-year-old Curtis Anthony Pounds III, a male student and football player at Carrick High School, was walking home after his first game. It was a moment that should have been filled with the promise of a bright future, but it tragically became his last. As he walked along Brownsville Road in the Knoxville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, a car approached, and a hail of bullets ended the young man's life, also injuring two other people.
The shooting, which occurred on September 10, 2015, was not a random act of violence but rather a targeted retaliation for a prior incident in which the assailants' vehicle had been shot at. Curtis Pounds, however, was not involved in any gang activity and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The investigation into the senseless killing of the Beltzhoover teenager led to the arrests of several individuals. In October 2015, police apprehended Daquan Moore, then 20; Romier Nevels, 17; and Antwan Martinez, 17. Due to the serious nature of the crime, both Nevels and Martinez were charged as adults. The following December, a fourth suspect, 19-year-old Keyshawn Givens, was taken into custody and identified by police as the shooter. A fifth individual, Eric Wormsley, was also charged in connection with the drive-by shooting.
The legal proceedings that followed brought a measure of justice for the grieving family of Curtis Pounds. In February 2018, three of the defendants were sentenced after pleading guilty to third-degree murder. Keyshawn Givens, who fired the fatal shots, received a sentence of 12 to 24 years in prison. Daquan Moore, who was driving the vehicle used in the attack, and his brother, Romier Nevels, were each sentenced to 6 to 15 years behind bars.
The fourth man, Antwan Martinez, who had cooperated with the prosecution, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit third-degree murder. In March 2018, he was sentenced to time served, having been incarcerated for nearly two and a half years. While the court cases against four of the five charged individuals concluded with convictions and sentencing, the specific outcome of the charges against Eric Wormsley in relation to this case remains unclear from available online sources.
