Detective testifies accused Arnold shooter wrote letters to coerce and intimidate witnesses
Apr. 16—The man on trial for the attempted homicide of a man in Arnold three years ago unsuccessfully tried to bribe his accuser into blaming another person for the shooting, a detective testified Thursday.
Westmoreland County Detective James Williams also told a Westmoreland County jury that Nicholas Haynes tried to convince a jail inmate to claim the shooting victim recanted identifying Haynes as of his attacker.
Williams testifed that two handwritten letters sent to inmates at the county jail in 2019 and 2020 were traced back to Haynes, the man on trial for the April 12, 2018 shooting of Malcolm Dunem in Arnold.
Haynes, 24, with listed addresses in Greensburg, Somerset and New Kensington, is on trial on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, robbery and a weapons offense, as well as counts of witness intimidation, criminal solicitation and fabrication of evidence.
Williams testified one letter written in 2019, a year after Haynes' arrest, was handed over to authorities by a fellow jail inmate. It was addressed to Dunem. In it, Haynes demanded Dunem change his story to identify another man as his shooter and offers to have friends pay him for doing so, Williams said.
"I need you on this. My life is literally in your hands," according to the letter Williams read to jurors during the third day of Haynes' trial.
Williams testified no fingerprints were found on the letter, but a handwriting expert confirmed that Haynes was its author.
A second letter was turned over to detectives last year from another inmate who claimed he was asked to copy its text and send it along to Haynes' defense attorney, Williams testified. The original letter, written by Haynes, claimed Dunem changed his story that Haynes was the man who shot him.
Williams told jurors Haynes asked the inmate to write that Dunem felt bad he falsely implicated Haynes out of personal animus and that someone else committed the crime.
Prosecutors contend Dunem, now 21, was shot three times, in the abdomen, leg and arm during a drug deal in an alley near his Arnold home.
Dunem was hospitalized for nearly a month after the shooting. He endured five surgeries to repair the damage.
Witnesses previously testified Haynes was upset that Dunem identified two relatives in an unrelated robbery.
Prosecution witnesses on Thursday testified the .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun turned over to police and linked to Haynes was the same weapon that fired spent cartridges investigators found at the shooting scene.
The trial is expected to continue Friday.
Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Rich at 724-830-6293, rcholodofsky@triblive.com or via Twitter .
