A Maryland man has been sentenced to state prison in the fatal shooting of a man whose body was found along Route 222 in Lancaster County near the Berks County line in 2023.<\/p>\n
Kevin S. Harmon, 38, of Gwynn Oak was sentenced Tuesday by Lancaster County Judge Craig Stedman to 27 to 54 years in prison.<\/p>\n
A jury in March convicted Harmon of third-degree murder, theft and carrying a firearm without a license in the killing of Miguel Vazquez-Ruiz, 54, of Baltimore near the southbound shoulder of Route 222 in Brecknock Township during the early morning hours of April 23, 2023.<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Ponessa, who prosecuted the case, said Harmon repeatedly lied to investigators and the jury, blaming Vazquez-Ruiz in order to absolve himself of the crime, according to a release from the district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe concealed evidence,\u201d Ponessa told the court. \u201cHe concealed himself. All to get away with murdering someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harmon was acquitted of first- and second-degree murder charges, but Ponessa noted jurors did not find credible his testimony claiming that he acted in self-defense and found him guilty of murder as opposed to manslaughter.<\/p>\n
Harmon shot Vazquez-Ruiz five times, including a final shot as he was on the ground that a medical expert testified was delivered execution-style.<\/p>\n
Ponessa said Harmon admitted in his own testimony during the trial that Vazquez-Ruiz was crawling on the ground when he fired the final shot.<\/p>\n
Ponessa said the murder weapon has not been found.<\/p>\n
After shooting Vazquez-Ruiz, Harmon rifled through the victim\u2019s pockets and belongings as he died and stole more than $2,000, Ponessa said.<\/p>\n
Harmon then sent \u201cshockingly cold\u201d texts to his son about being able to pay his rent and go shopping, she said.<\/p>\n
Harmon claimed the two were on their way to buy drugs when he asked Vazquez-Ruiz to stop the car because he had to use the bathroom. Harmon said Vazquez-Ruiz became angry and pulled a gun, which led to Harmon shooting him.<\/p>\n
Two of Vazquez-Ruiz\u2019s brothers urged the court to impose a tough sentence, asking how a life could be taken to pay rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor $1,900 I can never see my brother again,\u201d one of the brothers told the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Maryland man has been sentenced to state prison in the fatal shooting of a man whose body…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,46,182,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-235534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}