A new jury trial has been scheduled in May for a former Portersville man charged with homicide in the April 2014 shooting of his best friend.

Jeremy D. Sickenberger, 33, who now lives in Lawrence County, will be tried in Butler County Common Pleas Court for the second time beginning May 19 in the death of Thomas “T.J.” Stockman in Sickenberger’s former home.

In June 2024, Sickenberger’s 2016 sentence of 18 to 40 years in prison was vacated after he had served 10 years. He had been incarcerated since his arrest in April 2014 and was given credit at sentencing for time served since the arrest.

Stockman died from a .22-caliber rifle shot in the side of the chest in Sickenberger’s mobile home on Robbie Way on April 17, 2014.

State police said Sickenberger and Stockman were “horsing around” while watching a movie that night. Sickenberger retrieved the rifle from his room, came back to the living room, put the barrel of the gun to the side of Stockman's chest and pulled the trigger, according to police.

Sickenberger claimed the shooting was accidental, and that he did not know the gun was loaded. He denied pulling the trigger.

A jury convicted him of third-degree murder in September 2016.

After a first attempt to have Sickenberger’s sentence vacated and to receive a new trial through a post-conviction relief hearing in February 2022 was denied, defense attorney Marco Attisano appealed to state Superior Court, which ruled in his favor in June 2023.

The appeals court accepted Attisano’s argument that Sickenberger’s trial attorney was ineffective because he failed to request a “mistake of fact” jury instruction based on Sickenberger’s contention that the gun was unloaded.

Sickenberger was released from State Correctional Institution Pine Grove, Indiana County, on May 31, 2024, and placed on pretrial supervision after $100,000 bail was posted.