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Beaver County DA seeks death penalty in home invasion shooting

BEAVER FALLS, Pa. — Prosecutors in Beaver County are seeking the death penalty against one of two men charged in a deadly home invasion in which a man was killed and a woman was injured.

District Attorney David Lozier said his office notified the court on Dec. 10 that they were planning on pursuing the sentence, saying Joshua L. Diegdio, 33, killed 22-year-old Latrell Parker and wounded a 23-year-old woman during a home invasion in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue in Beaver Falls on Sept. 25.

Diegdio was charged alongside Patrick Haynes, 23, after police say the two forced their way into the apartment, demanded money and shot Parker and the woman.

According to the criminal complaint, Diegdio shot Parker and then Haynes shot the woman. Diegdio then shot the woman a second time when she tried to reach for her phone. The document says she then played dead as the two ran from the apartment, and she was able to call 911.

The woman was flown to a nearby hospital.

Haynes turned himself in near Harrisburg in Derry Township, Dauphin County, a few days after the shooting.

Lozier said they are seeking the death penalty against Diegdio on the aggravating factors that he committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony and knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person in addition to the victim of the offense.

“Seeking the death penalty is not common in Beaver County,” Lozier said. “We believe that 2012 was the most recent case in which the Notice of Aggravating Circumstances was filed for a Beaver County homicide.”