BROOKVILLE – Details from a Jefferson County murder case provided some insight into the alleged drug culture in a Clearfield County community.
A 27-year-old Troutville woman testified during the murder trial of Jason “Spike” Clinger of DuBois in Jefferson County Court on Friday, providing details about how drugs are brought into the area and how they were sold.
The woman said she has been selling drugs since she was 15 years old, and she and Clinger discussed the fact that drugs were coming into the area from places such as Pittsburgh and New York City.
That money, she said she and Clinger discussed, should have been coming to them.
“We had conversations about people coming to our town from other towns and making money we should’ve been making,” she said.
The pair, according to her testimony, discussed how easy it would be to kill someone from another town who was selling drugs in the DuBois area because no one would know them or realize they were missing.
The woman testified that she fled to Texas after the November killing of Davon Jones and Dianikqua Johnson, both of New York, because her name and address were published in a newspaper report on the case.
She also testified to knowing several other people in the drug business in the DuBois area, stating their names in open court and at one point noting who she knew that also owed money to Jones and Johnson.
The woman was then asked about statements she made to police stating that Clinger planned to kill Jones “and other black people.”
The woman said that, in her opinion, “The majority of people who come in from out of town and sell drugs are black.”
She said Jones, also known as “Banks,” and Johnson, also known as “Mystery Girl,” “Misty” and “Muffin,” came to the area to sell cocaine for the most part but sold heroin at one point. Two other men from the Pittsburgh area whom she called “Hood” and “A.K.” were competitors with Jones because they also sold cocaine, she said.
The woman testified to all of this activity, also admitting to smoking marijuana, without being granted immunity through the court system. If a witness is granted immunity, charges cannot be pressed for anything about which he or she testifies should that testimony incriminate the witness.
The defense attorney for Clinger, Blair Hindman of Brookville, asked the woman whether she had been informed of her Fifth Amendment rights. She answered that she had not been told of her right to not incriminate herself. Testimony did not touch upon whether the woman had been read her Miranda rights — a police warning given to criminal suspects — prior to telling police her story.
Jefferson County District Attorney Jeff Burkett did not state whether he plans to file charges against the Troutville woman. After the hearing, Burkett said, “I’ve learned a lot about the DuBois culture.”