South Fayette man pleads guilty to mother’s 2019 murder
A South Fayette man pleaded guilty to a lesser murder charge in the 2019 slaying of his mother.
According to court records, David Lee Sumney, 33, appeared Wednesday before Allegheny County Judge Edward Borkowski to plead guilty to murder of the third degree.
Sumney had originally been charged with criminal homicide. He also faced charges of abuse of a corpse, robbery and theft by unlawful taking. Those charges were withdrawn.
He is due to appear before Borkowski again at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 17 for sentencing.
Margaret Sumney, 67, was found by police Sept. 2, 2019, in a bathtub at her Olde Orchard Drive home.
David Sumney was arrested two days later and charged with stealing his mother’s jewelry, handbags and gun. He was charged in her murder later that month.
Police found multiple photos on David Sumney’s phone of his mother bruised and bloody. The Allegheny County medical examiner determined that Margaret Sumney had died from injuries to the head, neck and torso and ruled her death a homicide.
Prior to the murder, David Sumney had been arrested multiple times in connection with the assault of his parents. North Strabane police arrested him in August 2014 when he was accused of striking his mother, and again in 2015 in the assault of his father, David Lee Sumney Sr. South Fayette police also arrested him in 2016 in the assault of his mother.
David Sumney is currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail.