Teen charged after taking selfie with dying friend

Feb 17, 2017

On Thursday, an 18-year-old who shot his 16-year-old friend and then posed for a selfie with him as he was dying, was found guilty of third-degree murder by a Westmoreland County jury.

Maxwell Morton had been visiting his friend Ryan Mangan’s house in February of 2015 and said that the two of them were pretending to be rappers and imitating what they saw in music videos. So when Mangan saw a lump under a pillowcase and pulled out a gun, the two of them waved it around for a while. Mangan pointed it at Morton first, and then Morton wanted a turn.

According to Morton, the clip was out of the gun, so he didn’t think that it was loaded when he pointed it at Mangan and pulled the trigger. Instead, he ended up shooting his friend in the face.

Morton did not call 911 or tell anyone what had happened because he was scared of what might happen if he told anyone. Instead, he took a selfie next to his dying friend, and when a friend saw the picture, the teen’s parents reported the picture to police.

“It was a difficult case because of what he did afterwards, in terms of the selfie and all of the other stuff,” said Morton’s defense attorney, Pat Thomassey. “I give the jury credit. I think they came to a reasonable conclusion based upon all of the evidence they saw.”