There’s a major development in the murder case against Justin Stevenson, the 21-year-old Indiana man charged along with 20-year-old Nathan Price with the murders of a Cherryhill Township couple in October of 2016.
Stevenson, who is on the left in the photo with this story, is scheduled to appear before Judge Thomas Bianco for Plea Court on Friday morning, which indicates that he has struck a deal with the prosecution to avoid the death penalty and could possibly have decided to testify against Price.
Stevenson and Price are each charged with two counts of criminal homicide, and single counts of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery for the beating deaths of Timothy Gardner and Jacqueline Brink at the couple’s apartment outside of Clymer. Police say the two defendants were there to buy marijuana from Gardner, but had actually planned to rob him and jumped him, beating him with a metal pipe. Then, police say one of them went upstairs and beat Brink to death with a ball bat because she would have been a witness against them. Stevenson and Price both accuse the other of being Brink’s killer. A third defendant, Isaiah Scott of Clymer, was originally charged as an adult, but his case was later assigned to juvenile court.
Should Stevenson not go through with Plea Court, he is scheduled from Criminal Call on September 7th. No trial date has been set.
Meanwhile, District Attorney Pat Dougherty last week filed a brief in opposition to Price’s motion to preclude the death penalty against him.
