SCRANTON, Pa. — A Lackawanna County district magistrate on Tuesday found enough evidence exists to order that a Scranton man stand trial on charges he shot point blank a convenient store customer's head and a cashier's leg before ransacking the register earlier this year in the city's north.
The March 7 violence that left Jose Tatis mortally wounded on the floor of Sunoco gas station store on North Main Avenue was captured by surveillance cameras and played back for Magisterial District Judge Kipp Adcock during Tuesday's hearing. The chilling footage elicited gasps and tears from Tatis's loved ones seated in the courtroom.
Tatis's alleged killer, Shelton Miles, will next have to appear in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas to either enter a guilty plea or demand a jury trial on charges including robbery and first-degree murder.
"It was a tragic very, very violent case," District Attorney Mark Powell said. "We're pleased that the magistrate bound all charges over and we will be prepared to prosecute this case at trial."
Miles, 64, refused to attend Tuesday's hearing at which Adcock determined the county district attorney sufficiently established, at least enough to warrant a trial. After offering Miles several opportunities to reconsider, Adcock allowed the hearing to continue in absentia.
First Assistant District Attorney Brian Gallagher and Deputy District Attorney Sara Varela presented as evidence more than a dozen crime scene photographs and called as witnesses Lackawanna County Coroner Tim Rowland, Officer John Cantafio and Detective Francis McLane, who testified police have not found the murder weapon.
However, law enforcement officials testified to how they used surveillance video to identify Miles as the shooter and track his movements back to his apartment. While the shooter attempted to conceal his head, surveillance cameras from inside the store captured his face.
Investigators who knew Miles from previous calls quickly recognized him. Within a few hours, he was in custody.
In the videos from surveillance cameras, a man dressed in a poncho fashioned out of black garbage bags swept into the convenience store and immediately raised a pistol and fired at the first person he came across.
That was Tatis, a 26-year-old father of one who expected a second child soon. In the video, Tatis smiled and laughed with the store's clerk. It was a little before 11 p.m. In the morning, he planned to marry his fiancée, Charlene.
The copper-jacketed bullet struck Tatis by his left ear. He went limp and collapsed on the floor.
The gunman, who police identified as Miles, maneuvered around the store's counter and fired his pistol twice at the frightened clerk. One bullet ripped a hole in the store's front window. The second struck her thigh.
The clerk, who also attended Tuesday's hearing but who did not testify, found an opportunity to flee while her assailant helped himself to the cash register. As he stuffed money into his pockets, even more bills fell to the floor.
After a short while, he headed back out of the front door, carefully stepping over the lifeless body of Tatis in the process.
In a search of Miles's apartment building a few hours after the shooting, police said they found the clothing and shoes worn by the shooter in the building's dryer. There were still some bills of money in the pockets.
In Miles's apartment, they found vinyl plastic gloves like the kind worn during the shooting.
Tatis did not immediately die. He lingered for a few days before passing away at Geisinger Community Medical Center.
Miles remains locked up in the Lackawanna County Prison without bail.