J-S40004-20

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

v.

DAMIR WILLIAMS 

Appellant

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

:

 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 2882 EDA 2019

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered May 24, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County Criminal Division at 

No(s): CP-51-CR-0003682-2018

BEFORE: SHOGAN, J., KING, J., and COLINS, J.*

MEMORANDUM BY SHOGAN, J.: FILED DECEMBER 04, 2020

Appellant, Damir Williams, appeals from the judgment of sentence 

entered May 24, 2019, following his conviction by a jury of one count each of 

second-degree murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit burglary, and criminal 

trespass.1 We affirm.

The trial court summarized the facts of this case as follows:

At trial, the Commonwealth presented the testimony of 

Philadelphia [P]olice [O]fficers John Durkin, Barry Sudler, 

Christopher Jones, and Matthew Lally, Philadelphia [P]olice 

[D]etectives Michael Cannon, Michael Corson, Daniel Plaza, and 

Thorsten Lucke, Burlington County [M]edical [E]xaminer Dr. Ian 

Hood, Fred Martella, Brittney Rehrig and Andrea Williams, and codefendant Mark McLaughlin.3

 [Appellant] presented the character 

testimony of Angel Santiago and Loretta Amons. Viewed in the 

____________________________________________

* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.

1

 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 2502(b), 3701(a)(1)(i), 903, 3502(a)(1)(i), and 3503(a)(1), 

respectively.
J-S40004-20

- 2 -

light most favorable to the Commonwealth as the verdict winner, 

the evidence established the following.

3 At Docket No. CP-51-CR-0003681-2018, Mark 

McLaughlin pled guilty to one count each of murder of 

the third degree (18 Pa.C.S. § 2502(c)), conspiracy to 

commit murder of the third degree (18 Pa.C.S. § 903), 

and burglary (18 Pa.C.S. § 3502), regarding the 

burglary and murder here at issue. At Docket No. CP51-CR-0003683-2018, McLaughlin pled guilty to one 

count of burglary (18 Pa.C.S. § 3502), regarding the 

previous burglary of the Martella home discussed in 

the text, infra.

Mark McLaughlin lived at 7330 Hill Road, next-door to 7332 

Hill Road, where the decedent, Anthony Martella, lived with his 

sister, Rosemary Martella.4 On February 16, 2017, McLaughlin 

broke into the Martella home looking for money to support his 

drug habit. As a result of that break-in, he was arrested and 

charged with burglary on May 1, 2017. He was held in prison 

awaiting trial, but was released on September 13, 2017, at 3:00 

a.m. The charges had been dismissed, since Rosemary and 

Anthony did not appear to testify.

4 Because Anthony and Rosemary Martella have the 

same last name, they will be referred to hereafter 

using their first names.

On the very day he was released from prison, McLaughlin 

decided that he would break into the Martella home again. He 

met up with [Appellant], Damir Williams, whom he had known for 

several years. McLaughlin told [Appellant] that he had previously 

burglarized the Martella home, and that they could do it again to 

get some money.

Around 5:00 a.m. that morning, [Appellant] and McLaughlin 

went to the back door of the Martella home. Anthony answered 

the door and invited McLaughlin and [Appellant] in the home. 

[Appellant] then choked Anthony and jumped on top of him. 

McLaughlin and [Appellant] found tape inside the home and 

[Appellant] tied Anthony up while McLaughlin held him down. 

McLaughlin then went upstairs to Rosemary’s bedroom to grab 

money. On the second floor, McLaughlin found Rosemary in her 

room and asked her for money. McLaughlin found and took a 
J-S40004-20

- 3 -

purse that contained $150, car keys, and some bank cards. 

McLaughlin and [Appellant] then left the home and used the car 

keys to take Rosemary’s car. At some point McLaughlin cut the 

phone lines using scissors.

Around 7:45 a.m., Rosemary went to the home of a 

neighbor, off-duty police officer John Durkin. Rosemary told 

Officer Durkin that McLaughlin had gotten into her home again 

[and] had cut her phone line. Officer Durkin knew that McLaughlin 

had previously broken into the Martella home and that McLaughlin 

had been in prison for the break-in. Officer Durkin and Rosemary 

called her other brother, Fred Martella, and then started to call 

911 when Rosemary told Officer Durkin that Anthony was tied up 

in the basement. Officer Durkin and Rosemary then went into the 

Martella home. When they arrived, Anthony was untied but kept 

rubbing his hands over his chest, was short of breath, and seemed 

increasingly uncomfortable. Officer Durkin also noticed a broken 

lamp in the middle bedroom, tape on the basement floor at the 

bottom of the stairs, and that Rosemary’s car was missing from 

her driveway.

Between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m., an ambulance arrived and 

took Anthony to Roxborough Hospital. The same day, Detective 

Michael Cannon went to the hospital, but was unable to interview 

Anthony because Anthony was in too much pain. Detective 

Cannon received a phone call later that day that Anthony had been 

transferred to Temple Hospital because he was in more serious 

condition than previously thought.

On September 18, 2017, McLaughlin was interviewed by 

detectives at the Northwest Detective Division. During the 

interview, McLaughlin admitted to entering the Martella home with 

[Appellant] on September 13, 2017, and stated that he saw 

[Appellant] hit, choke, and tie up Anthony.

Rosemary’s car was found on Welsh Road in close proximity 

to McLaughlin’s grandmother’s house. Rosemary’s purse, taken 

from the second floor bedroom of her home, was found inside the 

car. The car was dusted for fingerprints, revealing a fingerprint 

from [Appellant] on the passenger side door handle.

Prior to the break-in on September 13, 2017, Rosemary and 

Anthony were in good health and able to live alone. Following the 

break-in, Anthony was transported to Roxborough hospital. He 
J-S40004-20

- 4 -

never regained his ability to speak and could no longer stand or 

walk. At Roxborough Hospital, he was put on a ventilator. After 

about two weeks, doctors performed a tracheostomy. Anthony 

was unconscious and not able to swallow or eat, so a feeding tube 

was inserted. Once he could breathe on his own he was 

transferred to a nursing home. Because he could not clear his 

airway by coughing or swallowing properly, he had episodes where 

he would aspirate secretions from his nose and mouth into his 

lungs, causing pneumonia.

Doctors determined that Anthony had suffered a hypoxic 

brain injury, that is, brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen 

getting to the brain. The injury was permanent, and Anthony had 

no chance to recover. After two or three episodes of aspiration 

pneumonia, his family made the decision to stop active treatment 

and for Anthony to go into hospice care. He remained in a nursing 

home until he died on March 15, 2018, at the age of 76.

An autopsy was done on Anthony by Dr. Ian Hood, a medical 

examiner for Burlington County and an expert in the field of 

forensic pathology. Dr. Hood determined that Anthony’s 

immediate cause of death was pneumonia, but that the 

pneumonia was caused by the hypoxic brain injury that Anthony 

had previously sustained during the burglary. Dr. Hood explained 

that the brain injury was Anthony’s primary cause of death as it

was the cause of the pneumonia from which Anthony ultimately 

died.

Trial Court Opinion, 12/31/19, at 2–5 (internal citations to the record 

omitted).

Following a five-day jury trial, Appellant was convicted of the abovedescribed charges. On May 24, 2019, the trial court sentenced Appellant to 

life imprisonment for second-degree murder, with a consecutive term of 

imprisonment of ten to twenty years for conspiracy to commit burglary, and 

no further penalty for criminal trespass. The conviction for robbery merged 

with second-degree murder for the purposes of sentencing.
J-S40004-20

- 5 -

Appellant filed a timely post-sentence motion, which was denied on 

September 13, 2019. Appellant filed a notice of appeal.2 Both Appellant and 

the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

On appeal, Appellant raises the following issues, which are identical to 

the issues raised in Appellant’s Rule 1925(b) statement:

I. Whether the [c]ourt erred when it denied the Appellant’s 

request to provide the deliberating jury with a written 

explanation of the defense of character and reputation 

evidence where the relevant Rule provides that a jury can 

be furnished with a written explanation of the charges and 

the defenses?

II. Whether the Appellant’s conviction for Murder in the Second 

Degree was based upon insufficient evidence where the 

uncontested evidence at trial was that the intervening cause 

of the decedent’s death was the family’s decision to withhold 

life saving treatment to cure the decedent’s pneumonia 

where such treatment had been successful two times in the 

past?

III. Whether the Appellant’s convictions were against the weight 

and credibility of the evidence and shocking to one’s sense 

of justice where the only witness who placed the Appellant 

inside of the home was the corrupt and polluted codefendant, where the medical records refuted the 

contention that the victim had been strangled and where the 

uncontested evidence was that there was an intervening 

decision by family members of the decedent to withhold 

necessary medical treatment to the victim to cure his 

pneumonia that interrupted the chain of events that led to 

the decedent’s death?

____________________________________________

2

 Appellant filed his notice of appeal to this Court from the denial of postsentence motions on September 13, 2019. Notice of Appeal, 10/7/19. In a 

criminal action, the appeal properly lies from the judgment of sentence made 

final by the denial of post-sentence motions. Commonwealth v. 

Kuykendall, 2 A.3d 559, 560 n.1 (Pa. Super. 2010). We have amended the 

caption accordingly.
J-S40004-20

- 6 -

Appellant’s Brief at 6–7 (re-ordered for ease of disposition).

Appellant first asserts the trial court “lacked a defensible reason” for 

denying Appellant’s request to provide the jury with a written explanation of 

character and reputation evidence. Appellant’s Brief at 30–31. This issue is 

premised upon Pa.R.Crim.P. 646, “Material Permitted in Possession of the 

Jury,” which provides, in pertinent part as follows:

(A) Upon retiring, the jury may take with it such exhibits as the 

trial judge deems proper, except as provided in paragraph (C).

(B) The trial judge may permit the members of the jury to have 

for use during deliberations written copies of the portion of the 

judge’s charge on the elements of the offenses, lesser included 

offenses, and any defense upon which the jury has been 

instructed.

Pa.R.Crim.P. 646 (A) and (B).

Appellant next argues that the Commonwealth failed to present 

sufficient evidence to support the conviction for second-degree murder. 

Appellant’s Brief at 38–39. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we 

must determine whether the evidence admitted at trial and all reasonable 

inferences drawn therefrom, viewed in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth as verdict winner, were sufficient to prove every element of 

the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Commonwealth v. Green, 203 A.3d 

250, 253 (Pa. Super. 2019), appeal denied, 216 A.3d 1036, 54 WAL 2019 (Pa. 

July 30, 2019). “[T]he facts and circumstances established by the 

Commonwealth need not preclude every possibility of innocence.” 
J-S40004-20

- 7 -

Commonwealth v. Colon-Plaza, 136 A.3d 521, 525–526 (Pa. Super. 2016) 

(quoting Commonwealth v. Robertson-Dewar, 829 A.2d 1207, 1211 (Pa. 

Super. 2003)). It is within the province of the fact-finder to determine the 

weight to be accorded to each witness’s testimony and to believe all, part, or 

none of the evidence. Commonwealth v. Tejada, 107 A.3d 788, 792–793 

(Pa. Super. 2015). The Commonwealth may sustain its burden of proving 

every element of the crime by means of wholly circumstantial evidence. 

Commonwealth v. Mucci, 143 A.3d 399, 409 (Pa. Super. 2016). Moreover, 

as an appellate court, we may not re-weigh the evidence and substitute our 

judgment for that of the fact-finder. Commonwealth v. Rogal, 120 A.3d 

994 (Pa. Super. 2015).

Finally, Appellant contends the verdict was against the weight of the 

evidence, a claim Appellant raised in his post-sentence motion. Appellant’s 

Brief at 31–37, Post Sentence Motion, 5/31/19, at ¶ 3. The standard in 

reviewing a weight-of-the-evidence claim is well settled:

Appellate review of a weight claim is a review of the exercise 

of discretion, not of the underlying question of whether the verdict 

is against the weight of the evidence. Because the trial judge has 

had the opportunity to hear and see the evidence presented, an 

appellate court will give the gravest consideration to the findings 

and reasons advanced by the trial judge when reviewing a trial

court’s determination that the verdict is against the weight of the 

evidence. One of the least assailable reasons for granting or 

denying a new trial is the lower court’s conviction that the verdict 

was or was not against the weight of the evidence and that a new 

trial should be granted in the interest of justice. 
J-S40004-20

- 8 -

Commonwealth v. Clay, 64 A.3d 1049, 1055 (Pa. 2013) (emphasis and 

citations omitted).

We have considered the arguments of the parties, the relevant law, and 

the complete record. The trial court aptly addressed all of Appellant’s issues 

at length and authored a cogent, thorough opinion. For this reason, we affirm 

the judgment of sentence on the basis of the trial court’s December 31, 2019 

Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a) opinion. In the event of future proceedings, the parties are 

directed to attach a copy of the trial court’s opinion.

Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 12/4/20