Defendant translates text in trial of Rite Aid worker's killing

Ashaniere White sat in a Delaware County courtroom Wednesday, reading aloud page after page of text messages sent between her and two of the defendants on trial in the September 2013 killing of a Rite Aid store manager in Chester.

The exchanges were rich in text abbreviations, jargon, and street lingo, which White translated when asked by prosecutor Christopher DiRosato.

"Bread" means money, White said. "Two stacks" is $2,000. "Lick" is a robbery, and "jawn" has many definitions, including job, girl, and robbery, White said.

White and Christopher Parks have already pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, robbery, and conspiracy for their part in the death of Jason Scott McClay, 40, of Marple Township. They have not been sentenced.

Both agreed to testify in the trial of David Wiggins, 25; Rita Pultro, 24; and Tariq Mahmud, 24.

Mahmud, a former Rite Aid loss-prevention officer, is accused of helping coordinate the robbery with inside information. He was not there the night Pultro allegedly fired the gun and killed McClay. Wiggins allegedly assisted in that failed robbery. The group had previously targeted the store three times. But only once had the robbers succeeded, walking out with $700 in cash.

DiRosato asked White what Mahmud texted her after that earlier robbery. "I left money in the safe," she said.

Bennett Preston, a medical examiner, testified Wednesday that McClay would not have survived the injuries from the gunshot that claimed his life.

Preston said the bullet entered McClay's neck, grazed his collarbone, hit the carotid artery, bruised his left lung, and passed through his aorta, trachea, and vena cava and into his right lung before exiting the right side of his chest.

There was massive hemorrhaging, Preston said.

During early summer in 2013, White, a high school graduate who was studying to be a computer technician, spent her days playing basketball in her South Philadelphia neighborhood, working part-time jobs, and hanging out with Parks, who is her uncle, and Mahmud and other friends.

By early August, however, their conversations had turned from playing hoops to selling drugs to robbery, White said.

White testified that Mahmud lived across the street from Parks and provided information about who was working at the Rite Aid store, how much money was in the safe, and when the best time to rob it would be. Three times, she and Parks went to the store at Highland Avenue and Ninth Street to rob it. Mahmud drove out with them for one robbery.

Mahmud warned them not to try to rob the store when McClay was on duty because McClay would "fight for his life," White said Mahmud told them.

The week McClay was killed, White and Mahmud texted back and forth about their plans to rob the store again. During a previous attempt, a Rite Aid employee recognized White. So Wiggins was brought into the group for the next attempt, according to White.

On the night he was killed, McClay had filled in at the last minute for another manager.

"At any point did Mr. Mahmud say, 'I'm done. I'm out'?" DiRosato asked White.

"No, sir," said White.