Slaying charges coming

By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item

March 27, 2008 05:09 am

— SUNBURY -- A suspect in January's double homicide at a North Fourth Street apartment is expected to be charged within two weeks, a police investigator said Wednesday.
Sunbury police Detective Christopher Blase said criminal charges will likely be brought by mid-April against a suspect in the Jan. 18 shooting deaths of Crystal M. Scholl-Gordon, 24, of Selinsgrove, and David A. Moore, 25, of Sunbury.
A suspect, Michael Harrell, 39, of Sunbury, was arrested on a parole violation within hours of Scholl-Gordon and Moore being gunned down at 226 N. Fourth St.
District Attorney Anthony Rosini did not return a phone call Wednesday about the pending charges.
"I've been waiting to hear this," said Scholl-Gordon's brother, Calvin Scholl.
Despite the more than two months that have passed since his sister's slaying, Scholl said he wasn't discouraged about the delay in charges.
"I'd rather have (police) get everything they need" to convict, he said.
Moore's mother, Kim Potter of Gaithersburg, Md., said the person who killed her son and Scholl-Gordon should be charged with first-degree murder.
"I feel it was premediated," Potter said. "I just don't understand why anyone would do this to David, or Crystal."
The shootings happened in an apartment leased by Amy Baney-Banks, 23, the cousin of Scholl-Gordon and Moore's girlfriend.
Baney-Banks told police that she and Harrell had an argument at the apartment prior to the murders and she asked him to leave, court documents said.
He allegedly vowed to return and 10 minutes later, at about 1 a.m., he was back in the apartment wearing a hooded sweat shirt and dark pants, according to court documents.
Baney-Banks said Harrell pulled a gun out of his sleeve and struck Scholl-Gordon in the face with the barrel of the weapon.
According to court documents, Baney-Banks said Harrell then shot Scholl-Gordon and Moore several times before fleeing the apartment.
Footprints in the snow led police from the shooting scene to 19 Fairmount Ave., where Harrell was seen taking out trash.
Inside his apartment, police found what appeared to be blood-stained clothing soaking in a bathtub filled with hot water.
Harrell was taken into custody that morning, charged with violating parole on a 2006 simple assault conviction. He's been held without bail at Northumberland County Prison since then.
Seeking to revoke Harrell's parole in February, Rosini filed a written petition that said "on or about Jan. 18 in the city of Sunbury, (Harrell) did cause serious bodily injury to other persons."
Harrell spat at a television reporter as he was being escorted by city police into the courthouse for the March 6 hearing. He was brought into the courtroom with a face guard.
At the defense's request, Judge Charles H. Saylor agreed to postpone the revocation hearing until June 5.
Scholl said he's been keeping up with the case in the media and was taken aback by Harrell's public demeanor.
"The way he acted to reporters showed he has no remorse," he said.
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