Mainline Media News
February 10, 2015
Testimony concluded Monday in the trial of three Philadelphians charged with the Sept. 19, 2013, shooting death of 40-year-old Jason Scott McClay inside a Chester Rite Aid where he worked as an assistant manager.
McClay, of Marple, was a Haverford High School graduate and a U.S. Navy veteran. He died of a single gunshot wound to the neck at close range. It killed him almost instantly.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher DiRosato saved Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division Detective David Tyler for the last of 32 witnesses testifying in the trial of David Wiggins, 25, Rita Pultro and Tariq Mahmud, both 24, all of whom have been charged with McClay’s murder.
Wiggins and Pultro are accused of entering the Rite Aid at Ninth Street and Highland Avenue shortly before 10 p.m. on the night of Sept. 19 with the intent of committing a robbery. Mahmud, a loss-prevention officer at that store, is accused of helping coordinate that robbery.
Tyler said Wiggins became a suspect within hours of the robbery when he was identified from palm prints he allegedly left behind on the store’s sliding glass doors. The defendant was arrested the following day at his home in Philadelphia and gave police a statement indicating he had participated in the robbery, but provided a false phone number and other bad information that initially hampered the investigation.
Tyler said Wiggins provided officers with a description for a white, four-door pick-up truck driven by a Caucasian male with a beard and blonde hair. Tyler added that detectives wasted a lot of time trying to track that lead down.