Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita, III announces that 21 year-old Damoni Hall pleaded guilty as charged before Acting State Supreme Court Justice M. William Boller to Murder in the Second Degree.  This is the highest charge for which Hall could have been convicted had he gone to trial.  In other words, Hall did not receive a so-called “plea bargain” and was instead prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law

On February 15, 2014 Hall murdered his estranged girlfriend, 26 year-old, Tequila Suter inside her residence at 29 Wilkesbarre in the City of Lackawanna by stabbing her 39 times. Although there were no eyewitnesses to the crime and the defendant denied harming the victim, circumstantial evidence -- including neighborhood video surveillance footage, cell phone tower analysis and forensic DNA analysis -- developed during a joint investigation by the Lackawanna Police Department and the Erie County District Attorney’s Office, led to the defendant’s arrest and successful prosecution.    

Hall faces a maximum of life imprisonment when he is sentenced on January 30, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. before Justice Boller. 

The case was successfully prosecuted by Colleen Curtin Gable of DA Sedita’s Homicide Bureau and John P. Gerken, Jr. of DA Sedita’s Felony Trial Bureau. DA Sedita also lauded the investigation spearheaded by Lackawanna Police Captain Joesph Leo, adding: “This case proves, once again, that the Office of the District Attorney will aggressively prosecute when a police agency conducts a thorough and professional investigation that provides us credible evidence, admissible in a court of law, which proves the defendant committed a crime.”