Followup PA: Bongiorni Found Innocent in Wilbert Shooting

Bongiorni, 69, facing the jury, nodded as he learned of the outcome and shook slightly. His daughter, Darlo Bongiorni, wept. Her phone call to her father for help when the intoxicated Wilbert arrived at her door prompted a confrontation between the two men in the middle of a street in the Bongiornis’ Burgettstown neighborhood.


A crowd of his supporters applauded James Bongiorni as he exited the courtroom, still escorted by sheriff’s deputies. Bongiorni had to briefly return to the county jail, where he has been an inmate during a yearlong stay.


Bongiorni, in testimony Friday, claimed he was justified in firing a single, fatal shot into Wilbert’s stomach during an episode that transpired in a Burgettstown street because Wilbert moved toward him with a Bowie knife, contradicting the assertions of other witnesses that Wilbert had no knife.
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