McKees Rocks man pleads guilty in killing after marijuana deal gone wrong

A McKees Rocks man, who was 16 when he shot and killed someone wo years ago, believed his life was in danger when he pulled the trigger.

Peyton Wiser told a judge on Tuesday that he was walking to a local store the afternoon of May 3, 2020, when he was attacked by a man who weighed twice as much as him.

Tiawaun Henley was mad at Wiser, police said, after Wiser sold Henley’s girlfriend a bad batch of marijuana several weeks earlier.

Witnesses said that Henley threw Wiser to the ground and punched him repeatedly in his head and body. Wiser testified that Henley also tried to strangle him with a belt.

But Wiser was able to push Henley off of him and retrieve a gun he believes Henley had brought with him.

As Wiser fled, he told the court, he bent down, picked up the gun, and started firing.

Henley, 26, of Pittsburgh was hit multiple times in the head and was pronounced dead a day later. Wiser, who fled the scene, turned himself in on May 4.

On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and illegal gun possession before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Anthony M. Mariani. Wiser’s bond was revoked, and he will remain at Allegheny County Jail pending sentencing on Aug. 22.

During Tuesday’s plea hearing, defense attorney James Wymard called multiple witnesses to support his theory of imperfect self-defense on his client’s behalf.

Wymard agreed that while Wiser was afraid for his life, he had a duty to retreat after he obtained the firearm.

According to Wiser’s testimony, as he walked along McCoy Road that day, Henley approached him and knocked a slushie drunk out of his hands.

Henley then grabbed Wiser by the t-shirt, slammed him into a garage door and knocked him to the ground. Wiser said Henley then knelt over top of him “pummeling him.”

At the time, according to court records, Henley was 6 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed 242 pounds. Wiser, who was a sophomore in high school then, weighed about 115 pounds, he said.

“The man was huge,” Wiser said.

Wiser said Henley let him get up, but then dragged him further down the road. Then Henley used Wiser’s cell phone to call his girlfriend, asking her, “‘What should I do with him?’”

Her response, Wiser said, was “‘Do whatever you want.’”

Henley grabbed Wiser again by his shirt, threw him into a bush and slammed him into the ground. He then sat on him and started punching him again, and used his belt to choke him, Wiser testified.

Wiser said he used all of his strength to get Henley off of him and started to run away. He saw the gun — which he believed had fallen from Henley’s bag during the attack — and bent down to pick it up. As he did, Wiser said, he turned and saw Henley coming at him.

“He’s running at me full speed,” Wiser said. “I just basically panicked and started pulling the trigger. At this point, I was scared if he would get the gun that I was going to die.”

Wiser said he continued to fire until the gun was empty. When he fled, he took the gun with him and then got rid of it, he said.

On cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Alison Bragle, Wiser said he was punched by Henley at least 15 times. Wymard submitted photos to the court showing abrasions on Wiser’s body the next day.

During the hearing, Bragle told Mariani that voluntary manslaughter was the appropriate result in the case. She said that Wiser’s belief that he needed to use deadly force to protect himself was unreasonable.

She noted that Henley was never seen holding the gun or using it in any way. Further, Wiser was not seriously injured.

“He had a duty to retreat,” Bragle said.

Wymard told the court that he believed his client had a good case for self-defense.

“I think it was a very close issue,” he said.

The prosecution said a standard range sentence in the case should be at least 4-1/2 years incarceration. Wymard said he will ask for probation.

“You want probation for killing a person?” Mariani asked. “He’s a drug dealer at 16 years old. This is not a babe in the woods, Mr. Wymard.”

Mariani then recounted other homicide cases he’s had involving marijuana.

“We have so many people getting shot in our community over weed,” he said. “One hundred dollars worth of weed.”