A prosecutor told jurors Friday that the sequence of events was straightforward when a Baldwin Borough woman fatally shot another woman in a South Side barber shop last year.<\/p>\n
Myairah Carter, 26, turned herself in less than an hour after entering Bonez Barbershop on East Carson Street shop in the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2025. She fired three shots, killing Rayon Williams, 26, of McKeesport. The two women had been feuding for two years.<\/p>\n
Carter faces a single charge: criminal homicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cMs. Myairah Carter walked into Bonez Barbershop \u2026 with her phone and her firearm,\u201d Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Ashley Clements said during opening statements in Common Pleas Judge Elliot Howsie\u2019s Downtown Pittsburgh courtroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you will see (in surveillance videos) is, without warning, Ms. Carter firing three shots at Rayon Williams,\u201d Clements added. \u201cWhat you will see is that those three shots hit Rayon in the stomach, the neck and the wrist \u2026 and what you will see is the shock and terror on everyone\u2019s face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clements\u2019 opening remarks lasted four minutes.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Ken Haber, who represents Carter, told jurors that context is key to understanding what unfolded at the barber shop that Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
In 51-minute opening remarks \u2014 which drew three objections from prosecutors \u2014 Haber painted a picture of an upstanding citizen, legally carrying a gun, who defended herself when confronted with a physical threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf only things were that simple, if only life was that basic,\u201d Haber said, responding to Clements, in the first words of his remarks.<\/p>\n
Haber called Carter, the oldest of six children, \u201csomething of a role model to her siblings.\u201d The University of Pittsburgh alumnus, who graduated in 2023 with a degree in criminal justice, was the first in her family to go to college.<\/p>\n
The feud between Carter and Williams started the year she graduated from Pitt, when Williams \u2014 then dating a woman that Carter had previously dated \u2014 stole Carter\u2019s pistol out of her car at a McKeesport park, Haber said.<\/p>\n
Carter reported the theft to McKeesport police, further angering Williams, he added. Vitriol on social media and \u201cdirect or indirect threats\u201d followed, according to Haber.<\/p>\n
Haber claimed Carter hadn\u2019t seen Williams in two years before they found themselves sitting next to each other at the barber shop last October. Williams\u2019 haircut was ending, and Carter\u2019s was just beginning.<\/p>\n
Williams threatened Carter, Haber told jurors.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018I thought she was going to shoot me or attack me,\u2019\u201d Carter told police, according to Haber. \u201c\u2019I saw her reaching in an area I believe she had a gun. I was in fear.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Carter fired the pistol she was holding under her barbershop cape three times, police said last year. She then walked to her car and drove home. About 40 minutes later, after calling her mother and her girlfriend, Carter called 911 and turned herself in.<\/p>\n
Williams, who was not armed, died at UPMC Mercy hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one here takes any comfort or joy in the fact that a life was lost in this case \u2014 no one,\u201d Haber said. \u201cBut there are laws in Pennsylvania \u2026 about self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shooting was reported to police just before 1 p.m. and captured on the barbershop\u2019s surveillance cameras, police said previously in court filings.<\/p>\n
Police said the video shows Carter sitting in a barber\u2019s chair at the shop, her arms concealed by a cape. Williams and two of the shop\u2019s staff are standing next to her.<\/p>\n
Williams is seen holding a cellphone in her right hand. When she steps toward Carter, Carter opens fire from under the cape.<\/p>\n
Williams runs to the back of the shop and collapses. Carter gets up, brandishes her gun and leaves.<\/p>\n
Police previously said Carter agreed to speak with them last October.<\/p>\n
Carter told police Williams wanted to go outside and fight, and that Williams said \u201cshe was going to hit her, causing her hair to get messed up,\u201d according to a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarter said Williams told her that she \u2018had to go outside sometime,\u2019\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Carter said that Williams stepped toward her with her left hand holding the bottom of her shirt. Asked if she saw if Williams was armed, Carter told police she did not see Williams with a firearm.<\/p>\n
After Williams stepped toward her, Carter told police she did not know if Williams was going to hit her or shoot her, so she fired three shots from under the cape.<\/p>\n
Police reported recovering three fired 9mm shell casings at the shop.<\/p>\n
Asked last year if she felt she needed to shoot Williams, Carter said, \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t have to shoot her,\u201d according to court records.<\/p>\n
Carter\u2019s trial will resume on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prosecutor told jurors Friday that the sequence of events was straightforward when a Baldwin Borough woman fatally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-308846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308846","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=308846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}