Autopsy shows Whitlatch was shot in the back
A Butler County Common Pleas Court jury learned Tuesday, July 16, that Tyler Whitlatch was shot in the back with a shotgun. The findings were revealed in an autopsy report which ruled the death a homicide.
A forensic pathologist testified Tuesday, July 16, the second day of the trial of Jessica Lee Callahan, 20, of Hilliards who has been charged with homicide in the death of Whitlatch, 31, outside of her home. Whitlatch was fatally shot March 20, 2023.
Dr. Todd Luckasevic, a forensic pathologist, testified that four pellets from a buckshot shotgun shell struck Whitlatch and traveled inside his body from back to front, right to left and slightly downward.
The fatal pellet entered the right side of his back, lacerated both lungs and his aorta, Luckasevic said.
A second pellet entered toward the middle of the back and caused skin and muscle damage. A third pellet entered his right armpit and lodged in his chest. A fourth pellet grazed his right shoulder, but the direction the pellet traveled could not be determined, he said.
Luckasevic said the first pellet struck Whitlatch from behind and to the right, and from a position slightly higher than him. He said Whitlatch was shot from more than 10 feet away.
“He was shot in the back,” Luckasevic said.
State police allege Callahan shot Whitlatch at her home on Kohlmeyer Road in Venango Township following an argument and then tried to drive him to Butler Memorial Hospital, but pulled over at the North Washington Rodeo grounds in Washington Township when his condition deteriorated and performed CPR. He was pronounced dead there.
Callahan’s cellmate in the county prison testified that she documented what Callahan told her about the shooting and kept a sketch Callahan drew of the shooting scene.
Deane Petzel, 57, of Connellsville said she is serving a sentence of 45 months in prison that will be followed by three years of probation and was ordered to pay $2.6 million in restitution after she pleaded guilty in 2019 to a federal mail fraud charge in a case in Texas.
In addition, she is scheduled to be sentenced in October and will owe more than $200,000 in restitution in a federal wire fraud case in Western Pennsylvania. She said she pleaded guilty.
Petzel said she wasn’t promised a reduced sentence in the pending federal case in exchange for her testimony against Callahan, but she was told her truthful testimony would be considered at her sentencing.
She testified Tuesday that Callahan was moved into her cell in March 2023 and they were cellmates until August 2023.
Petzel said they became friends, but she wrote down what Callahan said about the shooting when she would leave their cell, and she dated the notes she made. She said she did that because she was concerned about what Callahan was saying and wondered what would happen to her if Callahan was released and “something else happened.”
She said she didn’t ask Callahan to make the sketch, but it ended up in her belongings and kept it.
Petzel said Callahan told her she left the home after she and Whitlatch got into an argument. She said Callahan told her she went outside and Whitlatch went after her. Callahan then hid behind a bush, waited until she had a good aim and then shot him, she said.
She said Callahan said she would have been “better off” if she had removed Whitlatch’s teeth and taken his body to a pig farm where pigs would have eaten him.
The sketch, which was displayed for the jury, depicts a person near a bush in the yard of a home and another person on the road in front of the home.
Petzel said Callahan told her she knew she could hit Whitlatch from the bush because of her experience shooting shotguns competitively.
In addition, she said Callahan wondered aloud about how long it takes a grenade to explode after the pin is removed, and if a grenade would kill Whitlatch’s family.
She said she told a counselor at the prison what Callahan told her, and the counselor advised her to contact her attorney.
State police Cpl. Chad Savannah, supervisor of the forensic unit at the Butler barracks, testified that Whitlatch’s cellphone was found near the edge of Callahan’s property near the road and the lone spent shotgun shell that was recovered was found in the yard 56 feet from the phone.
The trial started Monday and resumes Wednesday. Judge Joseph Kubit is presiding over the trial.
