On the evening of February 21, 2017, 17-year-old Jihad Cromer was shot in the head inside a Robb Avenue residence in the Uansa Village area of McKees-Rocks, Pennsylvania. A group of young people were in the apartment playing video games when a single gunshot struck Jihad. He was taken to a local hospital and died later that night. Friends remembered him as a former Sto-Rox High School basketball player who mentored younger children and had no known enemies.

Investigators focused on 19-year-old William Hoston of the West End, who had been handling a handgun in the apartment. Hoston told police he was disassembling the firearm and believed he had removed the magazine clip when it accidentally discharged. He fled the scene afterwards but contacted Jihad’s mother the next day to apologize and later surrendered to authorities, maintaining the shooting was accidental. Hoston was arrested, charged with criminal homicide and a weapons violation, ordered to stand trial after a March 2017 preliminary hearing, and in October 2017 pleaded guilty under a negotiated agreement that resulted in a two and a half to five year prison sentence.

Did anyone who knew Jihad or witnessed that night see anything that could shed more light on what happened?