READING, Pa. – Testimony continued Tuesday as two men are on trial in connection with the deadly shooting of a Reading teenager whose body was found days after loved ones reported him missing in 2023.
A key witness, the then-girlfriend of one of the accused, took the stand just before 11 a.m. Tuesday and testified for hours — recounting the night of the deadly shooting and the days after.
Vashon Winfield and Hector Torres are standing trial on multiple charges including first-degree murder in the shooting death of 19-year-old Javien Perch who was reported missing in March of 2023.
Law enforcement and the then-girlfriend of Hector Torres, a key witness in the case, took the stand.
She described how she met Torres and also talked about being in the passenger seat of her car, with Torres behind the wheel the night authorities say Torres, Winfield, and Ansari Jalal picked up Perch in Reading and drove to a wooded area near the Reading–Alsace Township line in the spring of 2023. She recounted key moments during and after the shooting, saying she remained in the car near the scene.
“I heard a lot of gun shots,” she testified.
Then afterwards she says they told her, “Everything stays in this car.”
When she was asked repeatedly why she didn’t go to the police, she said she feared for her life.
She also said she drove and dropped Jalal off in Virginia days after the shooting.
Jalal remains at large.
The trial is set to continue on Wednesday.