Woman once harassed by murder suspect says he should've been in jail years ago

PITTSBURGH — A woman says a man accused in a deadly weekend shooting harassed her so badly at one point that she ended up moving out of Pennsylvania.

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Charles McKinney, 41, of Penn Hills is accused of shooting and killing Ja-Nese Jackson Talton, 29, of Penn Hills last Friday after she refused his advances at a Homewood bar.

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The woman, who contacted Channel 11 News on Monday, said McKinney should have been in jail years ago.

"Several times, I woke up and he was in the house. The final straw for me was when I woke up and he was standing over top of me and he was threatening me,” the woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

The woman said she rented a home from McKinney's mother in 2011, and said McKinney wanted her out and harassed her for more than a year.

"It was to the point where I didn't go anywhere without carrying a firearm,” she said.

The woman said that at first, police told her it was a landlord-tenant dispute, so she filed two civil complaints against McKinney in 2011. Police filed criminal charges in 2012, but when she went to court, most of the charges were withdrawn.

"He had another case that was pending and the officers from the other case showed up,” she said. “They pleaded away everything on my case so that they could get the conviction on the other officers' cases."

Feeling unsafe, the woman said she moved out of state and heard about Talton’s death on Facebook.

"I was immediately overcome with guilt and sorrow for this young lady and her family because had we been successful in any one of those charges, he was facing 8-10 years,” she said.

McKinney has his first hearing on the murder charges in connection with Talton’s death next week.

Cox Media Group