Note: The following news release is from the Office of the Bucks County District Attorney.
A Montgomery County teen who fatally shot a 19-year-old Perkasie man during a 2016 drug robbery in the Upper Bucks borough pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter and three other felonies.
Harrison Moss, 17, of Wyncote, Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, entered the plea two months after Bucks County Common Pleas Court Judge Rea B. Boylan ordered him prosecuted as an adult in the slaying of Iziah Lewis.
In pleading guilty, Moss admitted firing the bullet that killed Lewis on Oct. 29, 2016, in Perkasie’s Kulp Memorial Park.
Lewis died of a single gunshot wound to the chest after an arranged marijuana sale turned into a botched robbery by Moss and three friends.
Moss pleaded guilty to robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and illegally carrying a firearm without a license, in addition to the manslaughter count.
Boylan accepted the plea and scheduled Moss to be sentenced June 27.
Voluntary manslaughter, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery are first-degree felonies carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years each, while the firearms charge is a third-degree felony punishable by up to seven years.
Moss’s accomplices, all from Perkasie, have been sent to juvenile court for proceedings there. In the juvenile system each of the three could remain under court supervision until they turn 21.
In a recitation of facts that Moss affirmed, Deputy District Attorney Marc J. Furber said the four teens had been planning to rob marijuana dealers for several weeks. Their plan was to steal the marijuana and re-sell it for profit.
On Oct. 27, 2016, one of the Perkasie teens took two handguns belonging to his father, plus ammunition from a gun safe, and hid them under his bed. The next day, he retrieved the firearms after school and drove with the other two Perkasie youths to Moss’s home in Cheltenham, Furber said.
Originally they planned to don masks and rob a Cheltenham dealer, but the dealer refused to meet them, the prosecutor said. So the four returned to Perkasie, where another dealer arranged for them to meet Lewis in the park that night.
At the park, Moss and two of the teens walked toward Lewis’ vehicle. They demanded his drugs, reaching unsuccessfully for the marijuana as Moss and a second teen brandished handguns.
Lewis drove off and the three robbers fled, but Lewis then drove back, got out of his vehicle and chased the three to the rear of the park. One of the robbers, trying to get Lewis to stop, fired a warning shot into the air when Lewis was 20 feet away, Furber said.
Moss then warned Lewis he would shoot him if Lewis kept advancing.
Lewis “took a couple more steps and Moss fired a shot which struck the victim in the chest,” Furber said. “The victim yelled out and began to run away…”
Moss fired a second time, hitting only a tree, while Lewis collapsed to the ground.
When asked by the other armed teen why he shot Lewis, Moss said he thought he shot him in the leg and that he saw Lewis with a gun. Police found no gun on Lewis, Furber said.
The case was investigated by the Perkasie Borough Police Department, the Bucks County Detectives and the Pennsylvania State Police.
