Prosecutor: Evidence in killing points to victim's brother

On a bright, sunny March day two years ago, Jovonne "Piggy" Stelly, a mother of four, was gunned down in Southwest Philadelphia, caught in a crossfire between two groups as she tried to bring her kids inside for shelter.

"The bottom line is we have the Hatfields versus the McCoys" out on Pentridge Street near 58th that day, Assistant District Attorney Ed Cameron said in an opening statement yesterday at a trial of five defendants, all charged with first-degree murder.

"The twist of the case is that in all likelihood, Michael Stelly killed his own sister," Cameron said.

Michael Stelly, 34, and his co-defendant, Rashiek High, 30, who was Jovonne Stelly's boyfriend, are said by authorities to have been on one of the shooting sides.

On the other side, authorities contend, were defendants Samuel Scruggs, 48; his son Keith Devine, 28, and Scruggs' stepdaughter's boyfriend, Michael Wynn, 23.

The Stellys, High, Scruggs and Devine lived on the block where the gunbattle broke out about 4:30 p.m. on March 25, 2007.

Officer Donna Jaconi of the Police Department's crime-scene unit testified in the nonjury trial before Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart that 30 fired cartridge casings - from .357-caliber, .40-caliber, .45-caliber and 9mm weapons - were recovered from the block that day.

Cameron said in his opening that Jovonne Stelly, 28, had been shot with a .357-caliber gun and that Michael Stelly had been standing in an area where fired .357-caliber cartridge casings were found.

He also told the judge that this is a "complicated case" in which witnesses on the scene "aren't telling the truth" because they're "associated with one family or the other."

Cameron said that before the shooting, a car pulled up to Scruggs' house, and an unidentified man went into the house and passed out guns.

Kaya Shapiro, 20, the Stellys' sister, testified yesterday that before the shooting, she was hanging out with Eddie Tate, Earl Zarpeli and others near the two-story rowhouse where Scruggs and Devine lived.

She said they had gotten into an argument with Devine. "Eddie and Keith were supposed to fight because Keith shot at him [Eddie] a couple of days before," she said.

She said that she then had gone to a corner store and that a cousin of hers, Drayton Sterns, had run to grab her because a "rumble" was to start.

When she returned to the block, "a whole crowd" was there, and Scruggs "was telling Keith and Eddie they were going to rumble one-on-one," but "Keith said he wasn't rumbling," she said.

Then somebody on her side "spit," she believed toward Scruggs, and "then Sam pulled out a gun" on Zarpeli, she said.

"He had Earl on the ground in the middle of the street. . . . He put his knee in his chest. He told him he was going to put him where he belonged," she testified.

But Tate "creeped up" behind Scruggs, and then Devine "came up, started shooting," she said.

"Everybody started running," she testified.

Shapiro said under cross-examination by Michael Stelly's defense attorney, Thomas McGill, that when her sister fell after being shot, Shapiro ran into her house to get her brother Michael, who she claimed was in the house when their sister was shot.

In a statement to police, read in court yesterday, Michael Stelly said he was "going down my steps" when he heard shots. He said he was not carrying a gun.