Montco jury deliberating fate of 3 men accused of deadly Norristown robbery

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The fate of three men accused of a deadly robbery in Norristown is now in the hands of a Montgomery County jury.

Jerry Butler, 29, Damon Brantley, 18, and Daquan Allen, 30, face life in prison for the Jan. 20 robbery and murder of 35-year-old William Carter at Wood and Powell streets in Norristown. Carter was targeted because he’d recently won thousands of dollars gambling.

Defense attorneys argue the case relies on circumstantial evidence and testimony from cooperating witnesses —  a 17-year-old who took part in the robbery, and Carter’s ex-girlfriend who put a tracking device in his car and shared that location with Allen to set up the robbery
— who the defense claims are “unreliable narrators” who simply told detectives what they wanted to hear.

Prosecutor Meghan Carney told jurors detectives “didn’t just pick names out of a hat,” as she spent nearly two hours going through the evidence against the three men.

She says the two cooperating witnesses were offered deals to avoid life in prison , but they still face lengthy prison sentences. She says they didn’t offer them deals because they think they’re good people; they offered them because they cooperated.

She pointed to phone records, video, and DNA from the victim’s pockets saying Butler, Brantley and Allen “came together, they robbed together, and they fled together,” as the three were caught in upstate New York about two weeks later .

Brantley faces first-degree murder as investigators say he shot Carter in the head. Butler and Allen are charged with second-degree — or felony murder — and also face life sentences.