Medical examiner: BB gun victim died from accidental drug overdose

A man who police said was repeatedly shot with a BB gun by four city teens while he was unconscious in a Downtown alley in November died from a drug overdose, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said Friday.

Christopher Gaylor, 50, of Cadiz, Ohio, died Dec. 1 at UPMC Presbyterian from “combined drug poisoning of fentanyl, cocaine, ketamine and hydromorphone,” the medical examiner’s office said.

The death was ruled accidental.

Karmelo Harshey, 18, Isaiah Johnson, 16, Desmond Robinson, 15, and Lee Wilson, 16, each face charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and a weapons charge in connection with the incident.

District Judge James Hanley dropped attempted homicide charges against all four teens Wednesday.

The three juveniles are being tried as adults, police have said.

A criminal complaint filed in the case said Pittsburgh police officers responded to Downtown’s Coffey Way just before 1:30 a.m. Nov. 29 and found an unconscious Gaylor lying on the sidewalk. Medics took Gaylor to UPMC Presbyterian in critical condition. He died there two days later.

Doctors said Gaylor had hypothermia and police suspected he might have overdosed on an unknown substance, the complaint said. Gaylor also had injuries to his right jaw, right lip and right eyebrow, and the medical examiner found four BB rounds in his face and neck area during an autopsy, the complaint said.

Pittsburgh police detectives later found a video that showed the teens shooting a man on Coffey Way numerous times with a BB gun for about five minutes, police said. The young men passed a BB gun to each other and changed the cartridges several times while shooting Gaylor.