A judge sentenced 27-year-old Heirkiess Moore-Smith to 35 years to life in state prison for driving two masked gunmen to a Larimer home where they shot and killed Nathaniel Walker, a self-taught barber and father of six, in April 2024. Moore-Smith, of West Mifflin, declined to speak before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward Borkowski handed down the sentence, which also tacked on five to 10 years for conspiracy to run consecutively to the murder count.
A jury convicted Moore-Smith in June 2026 of second-degree murder, conspiracy, robbery and endangering the welfare of children, following about three-and-a-half hours of deliberation, according to TribLIVE. Pittsburgh police say Moore-Smith picked up two men and drove them to a home in the 500 block of Lowell Street in Larimer, then circled the block while the men went inside and shot Walker before Moore-Smith picked them up again and fled. Investigators traced Moore-Smith’s vehicle through surveillance video, and a distinctive black-and-white checkered backpack recovered from his back seat, per investigators, helped tie him to the scene. Surveillance video showed a black Jeep Compass shortly before 2 p.m. dropping off two masked men and later picking them up near Zenia Way after the shooting, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Police stopped Moore-Smith’s Jeep later that day. The child-endangerment charge was part of the case. Moore-Smith initially told homicide detectives that two armed men had approached his vehicle, held him at gunpoint, and forced him at gunpoint to drive them to Lowell Street and wait — a claim prosecutors disputed at trial, where evidence showed the SUV idling nearby while the men entered Walker’s home.
A Father, Fiancé and Barber Remembered
Walker had four sons and two daughters, and his fiancée, Nikia Pitts, testified that she had been with him at a South Side restaurant just before 12:30 p.m. that day, the same afternoon as the shooting. She said she received Walker’s final text at the restaurant around 12:30 p.m., reading “good morning, sexy,” never imagining it would be their last exchange. Walker’s sister, Pamela Weatherspoon, told the court her brother was more than a victim in the case and described the loss as a “life sentence of grief,” per TribLIVE’s account of the sentencing hearing…