Man gets life in prison for 2017 North Side killing

An East Allegheny man will spend the rest of his life in prison after being sentenced for first-degree murder on Thursday in a 2017 shooting death.

Justin Parrotte, 32, was found guilty by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning in a nonjury trial in February 2020 of killing 40-year-old John Miller on city steps in the Spring Hill-City View neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

Following the verdict, and again during Thursday’s hearing, Parrotte denied committing the crime.

He was ordered to serve life plus five to 10 years in prison by Judge Jill E. Rangos. She took the case over from Manning, who is on medical leave.

A witness told police that Parrotte met Miller on Jan. 25, 2017, and had sought him out because he thought Miller was an informant on a drug case.

Miller was shot five times.

After the shooting, that same witness told police that they walked with Parrotte on the North Side near the National Aviary. The witness said that Parrotte played on a set of swings there because he’d never been on them before.

Manning found Parrotte guilty of first-degree murder and gun charges.

In a statement read to Rangos, Jason Miller, the victim’s brother, wrote that his brother would not want him to hold hate.

“The last four years have been heartbreaking and I have been angered,” he wrote. “I shall in time forgive.”

Gena Miller, Jason Miller’s wife, told the court her husband talks to his brother’s ashes.

“There are no words nor punishment that can take the hurt or the pain from a brother who misses his brother,” she wrote.

“Since the night of the shooting, Jason has closed down. He has not grieved or had any closure.”

Their mother, Gena Miller said, is depressed and cries herself to sleep.

Addressing Parrotte, she wrote, “Our family is jealous because your family gets a chance to hug you, to call you, and to tell you they love you, and they may get to hear it and feel it back, something we will never get back from John again.”