Jack Edmundson has been locked away in state prison, serving a life sentence since his 2015 guilty plea for the New Year’s Eve, 2013 murder of Tunnelton gun shop owner Frank Petro. It’s one of several criminal convictions against him, and he has two appeals before State Superior Court.
Edmundson’s attorney on Friday filed court papers before State Superior Court in one of the cases. Last month, Indiana County President Judge William Martin ordered Edmundson to file a concise statement of the matters he is complaining about in his murder conviction, notifying him that any issue he does not raise will be considered waived.
Edmundson shot Petro after first extorting $146,000 from him in an illegal raffle scheme. When he pleaded guilty, he told Judge Martin, “I’m not exactly sure why I did this.” He also pleaded guilty in several other unrelated cases, and while in prison, he’s attempted to escape by filing away the bars on his cell window and by going on a diet to try to get thin enough to squeeze between the bars.
The Edmundson case is one of several before State Superior Court involving convicted killers from Indiana County. The court has heard but not yet rendered decisions in the cases of DeAndre Jones and Shaun Fairman. Jones was convicted for killing a Blairsville man in a drug case. Fairman was found guilty of killing his father-in-law in North Mahoning Township. The David Yingling case is in process. He was convicted of killing his roommate in Arcadia.
