'He lost his life for nothing': Hill District woman who killed stranger parked in front of her home gets 15-30 years in prison
By Megan Guza / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
If Angela Stewart had just stayed in her apartment in the early morning hours of May 1, 2022 — if she’d just minded her own business, Judge Elliott Howsie said — Rasheed McKamey would still be alive.
Instead, the judge said Monday, she went outside and confronted McKamey and his girlfriend when they parked in front of her home on Bedford Avenue. When McKamey tried to play peacemaker, she went inside, returned with a knife, and stabbed the 28-year-old three times.
“You stabbed Rasheed three times over a parking space,” Judge Howsie said.
Stewart, 36, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to one count of third-degree murder in July, a plea that guarantees she will receive mental health treatment in state prison.
“No one wins, and that’s why you should have stayed up in your apartment minding your business,” Judge Howsie told her. “Your children would still have their mother, his children would still have their father.”
Stewart tried to argue the details of the crime with the judge as he laid out his sentence, interjecting throughout to claim that it wasn’t about a parking space, that McKamey had gone into her house, that she had been threatened with guns, that she never left her porch, that she never retreated to get a knife.
“That’s not what you pleaded guilty to,” the judge told her.
He sentenced Stewart to 15 to 30 years in prison, a sentence he said took into account what he called a long history of aggressive and violent behavior.
Judge Howsie pointed to court filings he said laid out that behavior: She had been in fights, been the subject of a protection-from-abuse order, been aggressive toward police, and she once threatened to kill all her neighbors in front of a police officer. He said one elderly woman in Stewart’s neighborhood told investigators she carried a frying pan in her purse because of things Stewart had said to her.
“The thing that concerns me is she has such a documented history of violent, aggressive behavior,” the judge said. “This was really just more of the same.”
Stewart told investigators in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing that she was being stalked and harassed, although she ultimately conceded that McKamey was trying to break up the argument rather than escalate it.
On Monday, she told McKamey’s family she was sorry about what happened, and she hoped they could forgive her one day.
Her attorney, Milton Raiford, praised Assistant District Attorney Alison Bragle for working with him to secure the guilty but mentally ill plea. He used Stewart’s case to speak about what he called a mental health crisis in America and a severe shortage of resources.
“Mental illness is no different than cancer, than COPD … and it’s in your DNA,” he said. “You can’t run from your DNA.”
But several of McKamey’s family members noted that they, too, lived with mental health issues.
“I understand,” McKamey’s mother, Jamie Simmons, told the courtroom in describing her own mental health struggles. “But I haven’t ever, ever, ever in my 48 years of life thought about killing anyone or harming anyone.”
The difference, she said, is that she is guided by God.
“God was specific in what he told us to do and not do,” she said.
She used her victim impact statement to talk about her son — how he hated arguments and confrontations, and how he died being the protector he was raised to be. She criticized the detectives on the case, and she criticized the mental health system. She lamented the fact that her son is dead and she’s supposed to accept that.
“It really doesn’t matter how much time she gets, this isn’t the final stop,” she said of Stewart’s sentence. “God’s got the final say-so.”
Other family members remembered him as their rock and their protector. His sister, Andrea Cunningham, said next week will mark the third birthday she’s spent without her brother.
“I never had a birthday without my brother,” she said. “I’m trying to get used to it. Every time I think I’m OK, I’m not.”
Joy Simmons, McKamey’s aunt, called him “fave” — as in, he was her favorite. Now, she said, her family can’t even gather together because “something is missing.”
“It’s not fair,” she said. “I will never forgive, because I can’t get that back.”
Judge Howsie told Stewart she should consider it a break that she wasn’t tried for first-degree murder.
“Actions create consequences,” he said. “It’s a gift to you that I didn’t give you 20 to 40 years [in prison]. You still won, and he lost his life for nothing.”