Trial ordered in fatal shooting
CHICORA — A muzzle flash captured by a security camera was the moment state police believe Maximillian W. Halterman was fatally shot at his rental home in Oakland Township, according to testimony Tuesday at a hearing for alleged killer Alec D. Miller.
An investigator with the state police further testified that 19-year-old Miller is seen on the same video footage a short time earlier entering the house March 19 with a long gun. During Miller's preliminary hearing in Chicora, Trooper Robert Rottman said police suspect Miller, a neighbor, shot Halterman and made off with a “large sum of cash and drugs” from the house.
District Judge Lewis Stoughton ordered the teenager to stand trial on charges of homicide, robbery, burglary, trespass and theft. He remains in the Butler County Prison without bail.
Rottman's testimony offered details — some of them previously undisclosed — of the police case against Miller.
Halterman was found dead on the couch at the log cabin-style home where he lived on Davis Road. An autopsy would determine he died of two gunshot wounds to the head, neck and right shoulder.
Police suspect he was shot the night of March 19 but the shooting wasn't reported to police until about 7:30 a.m. March 20 when one of his sisters called 911.
“She believed that someone with the street name 'Shooter' had done this,” Rottman said, referring to the sister.
It didn't take long for investigators to match that nickname to Miller.
The investigation also led troopers to Robbie Dunbar Jr., 28, of Butler, who police allege Miller texted after Halterman was killed.
“I went to Max house and smoked him,” one text read, according to court documents. In another text he admitted shooting Halterman in the head and neck.
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