The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office has offered a Fox Chapel man accused of killing two men in separate incidents a deal that would call for him to serve concurrent life sentences in exchange for a plea of guilty but mentally ill to two counts of first-degree murder.

Adam Rosenberg, 23, has been in custody since February 2020, when he was arrested in connection with the shooting death of Jeremy Dentel, 28, of Baldwin.

Defense attorney Casey White said during a status conference Thursday that his team is still working with experts to determine how best to proceed with Rosenberg’s two cases.

In the first case filed against him, Rosenberg was charged with killing Dentel after meeting him on a dating app. Police said Rosenberg shot Dentel once inside the man’s Baldwin home shortly after 6 p.m. Feb. 16, 2020. His body was found the next day when his parents went to check on him.

Rosenberg also is charged in connection with the death of Christian Moore-Rouse, 21, of Verona, whose body was found near Rosenberg’s home on March 3, 2020.

Moore-Rouse had been reported missing on Dec. 25, 2019, four days after his mother said she last saw him.

Investigators said Rosenberg and Moore-Rouse were acquaintances, and Moore-Rouse was lured to the Settlers Ridge Road home under the pretense that the two would play video games and smoke marijuana.

Instead, police said, Rosenberg shot the man in the back of the head and dragged him to a wooded area nearby.

In July 2020, Rosenberg was deemed legally incompetent to stand trial and was transferred from Allegheny County Jail to Torrance State Hospital in Derry Township for mental health treatment and evaluation.

At the time, White declined to comment on his client’s diagnosis.

Rosenberg’s competency was restored and he has been back at the jail for more than a year.

Under Pennsylvania law, if a person pleads guilty but mentally ill, they still are incarcerated in state prison, but they go to a facility that can meet their mental health needs.

Also during Thursday’s status conference, Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beemer denied a motion by the prosecution to try both homicide cases against Rosenberg at one time.

In the prosecution’s motion to combine the cases, they alleged there was a common scheme in the two homicides. The prosecution said:

Both victims were shot in the back of the head. Both victims’ phones were taken, though not other valuables. The same Uber account was used to facilitate both incidents. Rosenberg’s cellphone contains evidence to “show motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge and identity in both murders.” Information gathered during the investigation of one murder “directly led to the investigation of the other crime.”

In objecting to the request, the defense argued that the prosecution “incorrectly points to a handful of meaningless similarities between the two incidents.”

“The alleged commonalities between the two homicides do not describe a unique signature as required,” the defense wrote.

They also said the prejudice to Rosenberg would be overwhelming.

“A jury very well could be uncertain about the defendant’s guilt of one homicide but more certain about his guilt as to the other, and unfairly reason that since he will be facing a life or near life sentence anyways, there would be no injustice to convict him of both,” his attorneys wrote.

Beemer agreed, finding there was not enough interconnected evidence to try the two cases together.

The next scheduled court date is Jan. 19.

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