### Shooter ID’d by Car, Prints, and Guns Upheld in Deadly Drive-By
Pennsylvania’s Superior Court affirmed Quentin Maurice Primus’s life sentence without parole for first-degree murder and a slew of gun crimes stemming from a brutal July 2022 drive-by shooting in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood. The panel rejected claims of insufficient evidence and improper prior-bad-act testimony, calling the circumstantial case against him overwhelming. Primus now faces life plus 43-86 years after a jury convicted him of murder, aggravated assaults, and firearms offenses.
It started in the dead of night on July 1, 2022: Three men—Darrian Davis, Jalen Yates, and D’Andre Wells—sat in a Pontiac G6 on Johnston Avenue when a gray Ford Fusion circled their block three times. On the third pass at 12:41 a.m., the front passenger leaned out and unleashed 16 shots from two guns, shattering the Pontiac’s windows and riddling its body. Davis died from neck and chest wounds; Yates survived hits to his neck and chest; Wells took one in the hand.
Cops quickly zeroed in on Primus’s Fusion—spotted by license plate readers with its telltale missing mirror and antenna. They pulled it over soon after; Primus was driving, his mail, learner’s permit, and pay stub inside. He admitted he was the car’s sole user that night. GPS from the car’s infotainment system showed it circling the scene right before the shots; Primus’s phones connected to it minutes earlier and pinged from Hazelwood post-shooting. His fingerprints smeared the passenger window in a shooter’s lean, palm on the rear door; ballistics tied scene bullets and casings to a 9mm he’d bragged about jamming days earlier in a Munhall shooting where his Fusion took fire.
Primus appealed, arguing no direct proof put him as shooter or accomplice—just “circumstantial” phone and GPS data that supposedly placed his iPhones elsewhere. The court wasn’t buying it. Viewing evidence in the prosecution’s favor, as required, judges said the totality—his car control, prints, phone links, texts (“coming from Hazelwood”), and gun history—proved identity beyond doubt, even without eyewitnesses. Circumstantial chains like this routinely lock in convictions, they noted, upholding accomplice liability too.
He also griped about Munhall evidence, claiming it unfairly painted him as a repeat thug under evidence rules barring “prior bad acts” to show character. Nope—judges ruled defense counsel opened the door by cross-examining a ballistics expert on the 9mm’s “multiple incidents,” inviting rebuttal to link it to Primus pre-arrest. The trial judge gave limiting instructions: Don’t assume he committed crimes there. No abuse of discretion; jury got the full, fair picture.
The unanimous panel—Judges Olson, Stabile, and King—filed the non-precedential decision December 8, 2025, ending Primus’s bid to escape the jury’s verdict from January 2024.