A Pittsburgh man with distinctive tattoos is now facing a homicide charge in the January killing of a man found shot dead in the middle of a Wilkinsburg street. Allegheny County investigators have identified the suspect as 41-year-old Jason Levelle Moran and the victim as 31-year-old Jack Johnson. Moran was taken into custody on March 2 and is being held at the Allegheny County Jail.
Allegheny County Police filed homicide charges against Moran, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by WPXI. The station reports that surveillance footage showed a man with noticeable facial and hand tattoos at the scene of the shooting. Detectives said they tracked that image across multiple cameras to an apartment on Wood Street, then watched the same man leave the building in an Uber. Several witnesses later identified Moran from a photo lineup, according to the complaint.
As previously reported in Man Fatally Shot in the Head, police were called to the 700 block of South Avenue on January 13. Officers arrived to find a man lying in the roadway at the intersection of South and Center avenues, where he was pronounced dead at the scene. In the immediate aftermath, authorities appealed to the public for help and circulated the Allegheny County Police tip line for anyone who knew anything about the killing.
How Investigators Tied The Case Together
The criminal complaint obtained by WPXI lays out how detectives say they built the case against Moran. Investigators used footage from several surveillance cameras to follow the man with the distinctive tattoos from the scene of the shooting to a Wood Street apartment, then documented him leaving in an Uber. Detectives also reported learning that Moran goes by the street names “Flame” and “Face,” and said that the combination of video evidence and witness identifications formed the backbone of the homicide charge…