Deputy halts courtroom attack before guilty plea in Monroeville Mall shooting

Before a courtroom attack disrupted a Monday plea hearing, the grief between the two mothers was palpable. One woman desperately wanted the other to know her son did not intend to kill anyone.

The other woman tried to forgive the young man who took her own son’s life in the Monroeville Mall parking lot.

“My son is not a monster,” La Rhonda Flowers said. “I am so sorry that you lost a child. I’m sorry. But I’m losing one, too.

“My son did not go to the mall to cause harm to anyone.”

Theresa Kallon, whose son, Saheed Gayle, was shot and killed in the mall’s parking lot nearly two years ago, was sympathetic.

“I know your son is not a monster,” she told Flowers, who sat in the back of the courtroom nodding. “None of our kids are. They just make bad decisions.

“I understand we both lost our children.”

On Monday, Lawrence Murphy, 21, of Braddock, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and carrying a firearm without a license.

As part of the plea agreement, Murphy will serve 15 to 30 years in state prison.

Before the hearing could even begin, though, Gayle’s twin brother, Samai Gayle, sprinted across the courtroom, attempting to attack the defendant.

A sheriff’s deputy stationed behind Murphy deflected Gayle away from his intended target into three officers from the Monroeville police department sitting in the front row of the gallery.

They immediately grabbed Samai Gayle, forced him down and managed to handcuff him — all while members of the victims’ family screamed and cried in the jury box.

Samai Gayle, 22, of Greenbelt, Maryland, was taken into custody and later released. He will be charged by summons with disorderly conduct, harassment and resisting arrest.

“We can’t have people act like this in the courthouse,” said Chief Deputy Sheriff Jack Kearney.

The courtroom was cleared of all spectators, and when the case began a short time later, only four members of each family, including those planning to testify, were permitted to return.

Deputy District Attorney Kevin Chernosky told Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Susan Evashavik DiLucente that police were called to Monroeville mall at 1:26 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2020, for a person having been shot in a parking lot.

When they arrived, they found Gayle in a vestibule with a single gunshot wound to his chest.

Gayle, 20, was a student at Community College of Allegheny County and worked at a kiosk in the mall. That day, he had an argument with Murphy and a woman he was with. Chernosky did not specify what the argument was about. However, he said that Gayle followed the couple outside the mall, and continued the dispute in the parking lot.

Murphy pulled a gun, shooting Gayle once in the back.

Murphy turned himself in nine days later.

When Kallon took the stand to give her victim impact statement, she began by apologizing for her son’s behavior in the courtroom.

“I did not raise him like that,” she said.

Kallon told the judge that she told Samai to respect the court process, but that he was the one who had to identify his brother’s body when he was killed.

“I’m constantly telling him violence is not the answer,” she said.

Kallon spoke with grace and empathy throughout her testimony, telling the court that her son’s death completely destroyed her life — forcing her to leave her job as a pediatric practice manager, and causing her to separate from her husband.

“I pray for you, even though my heart doesn’t want to,” she told the defendant. “The God I serve says I have to.”

She told Murphy she couldn’t bear to say his name out loud.

“I don’t mean to call you a killer,” she said.

Kallon said she forgives him.

Murphy, when it was his turn to speak, apologized.

“I feel this every day just like you guys,” he said, telling Gayle’s family that he sometimes can’t sleep at night.

“I appreciate you not calling me a killer because I’m really not. Thank you for forgiving me. I know it was hard for you do that. I know I’ve caused you a lot of pain and suffering.”

Flowers described her only child as a kind, loving person, who helped as a caregiver for his friend when he was paralyzed by gunfire.

Evashavik DiLucente told Murphy that she would have expected him to have understood the dangers of carrying a firearm.

“You saw first-hand what wreckage gunfire does to your friend who’s paralyzed and just cavalierly pull out a gun and shoot somebody,” she said. “It’s incomprehensible to me. It’s just never-ending, senseless gun violence.”

But, she continued, “I believe you’re sorry.”