NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA
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v. :
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CORNELIUS LAQWA MAPSON :
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Appellant : No. 986 MDA 2025
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered August 17, 2020 In the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-35-CR-0000954-2018
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA
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v. :
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:
CORNELIUS LAQWA MAPSON :
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Appellant : No. 987 MDA 2025
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered August 17, 2020 In the Court of Common Pleas of Lackawanna County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-35-CR-0000864-2019
BEFORE: BOWES, J., DUBOW, J., and NEUMAN, J. MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED: AUGUST 24, 2026 Cornelius Laqwa Mapson appeals from the judgment of sentence of life imprisonment for first-degree murder and various drug offenses.1 We affirm.
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1 This Court sua sponte consolidated the appeals.We have also adjusted the caption in 986 MDA 2025 to correct Appellant’s name.
By way of background, Appellant was arrested on February 20, 2018, after selling heroin and crack cocaine to Nina Gatto, a confidential informant working with detectives of Lackawanna County, and charged with a litany of drug offenses. Upon his release on bail, Appellant informed multiple people that Gatto, whom he had known previously, set him up and “the bitch has to go.” N.T. Trial, 6/1/20, at 220.
Appellant devised a plan to murder Gatto before she could testify against him, and asked his girlfriend, Melinda Palermo, and his friend, Kevin Weeks, to assist. Due to her love for Appellant and disdain for Gatto, Palermo agreed, and Appellant promised to pay Weeks a substantial sum for his participation. The original plan was for Appellant to supply drugs to Weeks, which he would give to Gatto, in an attempt to cause Gatto to overdose. Over the course of several weeks, Appellant provided drugs to Weeks at no cost to administer to Gatto, but she repeatedly failed to overdose. Appellant then ordered Palermo to purchase battery acid at an auto store so he could lace the next batch of heroin with it. When Gatto tried to pull the spiked heroin into her syringe, however, it turned black and sludgy, and she refused to use it.
In light of his several failed attempts, Appellant traveled to Philadelphia the next day to procure fentanyl-laced heroin. During a discussion of the plan with Palermo and Weeks, Appellant asked “Why can’t I just go in there and yoke her up?” Id. at 93-94. Palermo knew that Appellant meant that he
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wanted to strangle Gatto. He provided the fentanyl-laced batch of heroin to Palmero, who drove Weeks to Gatto’s apartment that evening.
Weeks delivered the drugs to Gatto and stayed to engage in other drug use. Although she ingested all of the fentanyl-heroin mixture, Gatto did not overdose. Weeks informed Palermo of this, and she visited the apartment, on false pretenses to drink with Gatto, to supply more tampered drugs. She also unlocked the back door so Appellant could enter if necessary. The agreement was that if Gatto continued to fail to overdose, Appellant would go in and assist. Palermo and Weeks were in Gatto’s bedroom to shoot heroin, but Weeks got “kicked out” and fell asleep on the couch in the living room. Id. at 237. Palermo, a certified nursing assistant, tried to help Gatto find a vein to inject the drugs into since most of them were collapsed.
After Palermo failed to induce an overdose, she notified Appellant, who proceeded to enter Gatto’s bedroom, place his hands over her mouth and nose, and suffocate her. He was looking for things to place in Gatto’s mouth as she fought back and ordered Palermo to find a bag. She ran into the kitchen, and Weeks awoke to the commotion and entered the bedroom to find Appellant on top of Gatto with his hands on her face. Appellant was approximately one-hundred pounds heavier, and over a foot taller, than Gatto. Weeks believed that Appellant was suffocating Gatto since she was making muffled noises while his hands covered her face. Appellant yelled at Weeks to help him get Gatto onto her bed, but Weeks refused and walked away.
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Palermo reentered the bedroom and grabbed Gatto’s legs to help Appellant hoist her onto the bed. She then checked Gatto’s pulse, and pronounced her deceased.
Appellant immediately left the apartment while Palermo and Weeks stayed to clean up any evidence. He left a note of instructions for Palermo and Weeks to throw their clothing into a bag that already contained Appellant’s belongings and dispose of them in a dumpster. The following day, after Gatto failed to respond to multiple text messages, her mother, Katie Gatto, discovered her body in the apartment.
Based upon conversations extracted from Gatto’s phone, Appellant, Palermo, and Weeks were arrested in connection with her death. Appellant was charged with first-degree murder, and Palermo and Weeks each pled guilty to third-degree murder in exchange for testifying against Appellant. In return for the Commonwealth withdrawing its intent to seek the death penalty, Appellant waived his right to a jury trial. At the four-day bench trial, the drug charges arising from Appellant’s sale of narcotics to Gatto, while she was acting as a confidential informant, were tried together with the charges related to her murder. Palermo, Weeks, investigating officers, and Katie Gatto testified to the aforementioned facts. Appellant also called the arresting officer in his defense.
Relevantly, Palermo confirmed that she had agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder and testify against Appellant because the evidence
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against her was substantial. She was afraid of life imprisonment and never seeing her children again. The murder was Appellant’s initial idea, but Palermo confessed that she had her own motivation to kill Gatto because of her position as a confidential informant and having Appellant arrested, and agreed to the plan. Weeks explained that he recently had a child at the time when Appellant approached him and he was in need of the money that Appellant had promised him. He understood that the goal was to kill Gatto. The coroner and medical examiner both confirmed that Gatto’s cause of death was the effects of fentanyl, morphine, venlafaxine, and mirtazapine, and obstruction of the mouth and nose. Katie Gatto established that she intended to file a suit against the Lackawanna District Attorney’s office, but at the time of trial, no complaint had been submitted. At the conclusion, the court adjudicated Appellant guilty of all charges and subsequently sentenced him to life imprisonment, plus five to twenty-six years.
Appellant filed an untimely post-sentence motion. The case sat idle until nearly a year later when on January 4, 2022, Appellant moved for the court to enter an order denying the post-sentence motion by operation of law, which it did on October 5, 2022. Appellant filed a notice of appeal, and the court, ostensibly treating the appeal as timely, ordered a concise statement in accordance with Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b). Appellant complied, and the court authored a responsive Rule 1925(a) opinion on January 26, 2023.
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This Court quashed the appeal as untimely because Appellant had failed to toll the appeal period with a timely post-sentence motion. After the court reinstated Appellant’s direct appeal rights through granting a petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act, the instant appeal followed. He submitted a revised court-ordered Rule 1925(b) statement, and the court relied upon its prior Rule 1925(a) opinion.2 Appellant now raises the following issues for our analysis:
1. Whether the evidence was insufficient to prove every element of the crime of murder in the first degree beyond a reasonable doubt including whether Appellant is the person that did the killing?
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in precluding the defense from playing the post-arrest recorded interview of . . . Palermo, with the testifying officer to establish law enforcement initially believed she was the killer and the reasons why?
3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion and/or erred in precluding the defense from questioning [Gatto’s] mother about the grounds for the civil law suit she put the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s office and detectives on notice of when it was a direct and proximate result of [Gatto]’s involvement with detectives related to the criminal charges filed against Appellant and relevant to the credibility and/or bias of the investigation and testimony of those detectives?
4. Whether the Commonwealth violated Pa.R.Crim.P. 573(b), due process, and Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)[,] by failing to turn over material text messages exchanged by Lackawanna County Detectives and [Gatto,] which messages
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2 We remind the trial court that all Rule 1925(b) orders must specify “both the
place the appellant can serve the Statement in person and the address to which the appellant can mail the Statement.” Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b)(3)(iii).
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revealed [her] mental incapacity, reliability issues, and compromised ability to consent.
Appellant’s brief at 3.
We begin with Appellant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his conviction for murder. We review this matter with the following well-settled legal principles in mind:
Our standard of review for a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is to determine whether, when viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict winner, the evidence at trial and all reasonable inferences therefrom are sufficient for the trier of fact to find that each element of the crimes charged is established beyond a reasonable doubt. The Commonwealth may meet this burden of proving every element of the crime by utilizing only circumstantial evidence.
The facts and circumstances established by the Commonwealth need not preclude every possibility of innocence. Any doubt raised as to the accused’s guilt is to be resolved by the fact-finder, so long as the evidence presented is not utterly incapable of supporting the necessary inferences. This Court does not independently assess credibility or otherwise assign weight to evidence on appeal.
Commonwealth v. Riley, 302 A.3d 112, 115 (Pa.Super. 2023) (cleaned up).
Appellant was convicted of first-degree murder, meaning a homicide “committed by an intentional killing,” which is defined as “[k]illing by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate[,] and premeditated killing.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 2502. The Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: “(1) a human being was unlawfully killed; (2) the defendant was responsible for the killing; and (3) the defendant acted with malice and a specific intent to kill.” Commonwealth v. Martin, 101
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A.3d 706, 718 (Pa. 2014) (citations omitted). As for malice, “evidence of death by strangulation can be sufficient to establish the requisite intent for first-degree murder.” Id. at 718-19 (cleaned up).
Beyond proving the statutory elements of homicide, “the Commonwealth must also establish the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator of the crimes.” Commonwealth v. Griffin-Morgan, 347 A.3d 1133, 1136 (Pa.Super. 2025). Yet, “direct evidence of identity is, of course, not necessary, and a defendant may be convicted solely on circumstantial evidence.” Commonwealth v. Smyser, 195 A.3d 912, 915 (Pa.Super. 2018) (cleaned up).
Appellant maintains that the evidence failed to show that he “provided the victim with drugs or that he suffocated her.” Appellant’s brief at 10. Rather, he contends that it was clear that Palermo, not Appellant, “possessed the specific intent to kill, provided the victim with the drugs, and was alone with the victim for an extended period in the very room where she died.” Id. In his view, “[t]he only direct testimony claiming Appellant suffocated the victim came from Palermo, whose account was inconsistent, contradicted by other evidence, and tailored after she secured a plea agreement for third- degree murder.” Id. at 15. Weeks, Appellant states, did not actually view him suffocate the victim, and simply “made a conclusion” based upon his observations. Id. at 19-20. Appellant argues that Palermo was the individual who injected the victim multiple times with drugs to instigate an overdose,
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and admitted that “she believed she would never see her kids again and . . . knew there was no way out.” Id. at 21 (cleaned up).
Contrary to Appellant’s belief, the Commonwealth’s evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gatto was unlawfully killed, Appellant perpetrated her murder, and he had the specific intent to kill her. See Martin, 101 A.3d at 718. In particular, the trial testimony established that the trio, directed by Appellant, conspired for multiple weeks to kill Gatto after he suspected that she was a confidential informant and declared that “the bitch ha[d] to go.” N.T. Trial, 6/1/20, at 220. To that end, Appellant supplied drugs to Weeks with precise direction to administer them to Gatto to induce an overdose in exchange for payment, and when that failed, he injected the drugs with battery acid and procured fentanyl-laced heroin. After the group repeatedly failed to cause Gatto to overdose, and following Appellant’s expressed desire to “yoke her up,” id. at 93-94, Appellant entered Gatto’s apartment, placed his hand over her mouth and nose, ordered Palermo and Weeks to assist in the killing, and ultimately smothered Gatto.
The fact that Weeks did not see Gatto die by asphyxia makes no difference where he observed Appellant standing over Gatto, with his hand on her face, and her voice muffled, immediately prior to her death. Palermo’s independent motive for joining the conspiracy also does not negate the fact that Appellant continually supplied heroin, and eventually tampered-with drugs, to kill Gatto and physically suffocated her. The evidence was therefore
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sufficient to prove each element of first-degree murder and establish that Appellant was the perpetrator. See Martin, 101 A.3d at 718-19.
At bottom, Appellant’s grievance is that the court credited Palermo’s testimony. However, it is axiomatic that this Court does not reassess the credibility of witnesses during a review of the sufficiency of the evidence. See Riley, 302 A.3d at 115. Issues with credibility are reserved for challenges to the weight, not the sufficiency, of the evidence. See Commonwealth v. Juray, 275 A.3d 1037, 1043 (Pa.Super. 2022) (“[A] sufficiency of the evidence review does not include an assessment of credibility of testimony offered by the Commonwealth. Instead, such arguments are more properly characterized as challenges to weight of evidence.”). Since Appellant has failed to raise or preserve a weight challenge, his credibility attack is unavailing.
Appellant next avers that the court abused its discretion in precluding him from playing a video of one of Palermo’s post-arrest interviews at trial. Before considering the merits of this contention, we must address whether it is properly before us.
The following additional background is instructive. Appellant called Detective Joseph Lafferty, the arresting officer, to testify as to Palermo’s April 27, 2018, and May 3, 2018, post-arrest interviews. Appellant authenticated the April 27, 2018 video-recorded interview and sought to play it for the trial
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judge, but the Commonwealth objected on procedural and hearsay grounds. The following exchange then took place:
The Court: Well, do you have specific questions about the interview that you want to ask him?
[Appellant]: I can do that, Your Honor, yes.
The Court: All right. Let’s do it that way. I’m not convinced it’s hearsay because he’s here and she was a codefendant in the case.
N.T. Trial, 6/5/20, at 146 (cleaned up).
Appellant’s counsel proceeded to ask the detective about both interviews. However, counsel did not attempt to introduce or play the May 3, 2018 video, and instead questioned the detective regarding the content of his discussion with Palermo and his investigative strategies.
In his Rule 1925(b) statement, Appellant complained that the court abused its discretion when it refused to allow him to play the May 3, 2018 video-recorded interview. See Rule 1925(b) Statement, 8/19/25, at 10. In its Rule 1925(a) opinion, the court found the issue waived because Appellant “was never precluded from introducing the May 3, 2018 post-arrest interview” as “it was never offered or, for that matter, objected to.” Trial Court Opinion, 1/26/23, at 29.
The Rules of Appellate Procedure dictate that “[i]ssues not raised in the trial court are waived and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.” Pa.R.A.P. 302(a). The record belies Appellant’s contention that the court precluded the evidence. Here, when Appellant requested to play the April
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interview, the court expressed doubt about the validity of the Commonwealth’s hearsay objection, but suggested that Appellant elicit testimony from the detective that would have clarified the issue about the contents of the video. Appellant elected to follow the court’s suggestion and never renewed his request to play the May interview. Consequently, the court made no definitive ruling on the admissibility of either video, and we are left with no discretion to review. Accordingly, this issue has been waived.3 Next, Appellant argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it prevented him from questioning Katie Gatto about a civil lawsuit she intended to file against the Lackawanna District Attorney’s office. This Court reviews evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion. See Commonwealth v. Kramer, 350 A.3d 975, 987 (Pa.Super. 2025). “An abuse of discretion is not merely an error of judgment, but if in reaching a conclusion the law is overridden or misapplied, or the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will, as shown by the evidence or the record, discretion is abused.” Commonwealth v. Reed, 292 A.3d 601, 605 (Pa.Super. 2023) (cleaned up). Additionally, “for a
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3 At trial, Appellant asked Detective Lafferty whether he believed Palermo was
the primary suspect in Gatto’s murder, as he now contends the video would have demonstrated. The detective, however, explained that all three individuals were suspected in the victim’s killing at that time. See N.T., 6/5/20, 146-49.
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ruling on evidence to constitute reversible error, it must have been harmful or prejudicial to the complaining party.” Kramer, 350 A.3d at 987.
The following additional background is relevant to this issue. Prior to Appellant’s bench trial, the Commonwealth filed a motion in limine seeking to preclude the defense from questioning Gatto’s mother about a civil suit she planned to file against the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s office. With respect to suits against government units for damages, a plaintiff is initially required to file a notice pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 5522, but the provision does not mandate that the litigant state the intended claims or theories of recovery. Id. The trial court denied the Commonwealth’s motion and permitted Appellant to introduce the § 5522 notice during the bench trial. However, it did not allow him to pose further questions about the substance of the suit considering only a notice had been filed, and no complaint yet existed. In its Rule 1925(a) opinion, the court defended its position in preventing Appellant from questioning Katie Gatto as to the allegations of her pending civil suit because she did not file the complaint until three months after Appellant’s trial.
Appellant also maintains that the court abused its discretion in failing to allow him to question Katie Gatto about a letter she had included with the § 5522 notice, which purportedly identified the basis of the contemplated claim. See Appellant’s brief at 27. He cites Commonwealth v. Hanford, 937 A.2d 1094 (Pa.Super. 2007), for the proposition that “[t]he grounds for
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the intended civil suit were relevant and admissible under the Pennsyvlanai [sic] law to show bias.” Appellant’s brief at 28.
In Hanford, this Court concluded that a civil suit filed by the complainant against a defense witness was admissible at a criminal trial to impeach the complainant’s credibility. The trial court allowed questions regarding “the existence of the civil suit and the grounds on which the complainant was suing him” but did not allow the particular facts alleged in the complaint to be introduced. See Hanford, 937 A.2d at 1099. This Court held that questions about the existence and claims of the suit were “sufficient to show the complainant’s possible bias and interest in the outcome of the case.” Id. Thus, we concluded that “the trial court did not err to the extent that it permitted introduction of the existence of the civil suit.” Id.
In the case sub judice, the court allowed Appellant to introduce the § 5522 notice, but precluded further questioning on the merits of the civil suit. The court’s decision was reasonable given that no complaint had been filed, and thus there were no allegations to be asked about at the time of trial. The letter attached to the § 5522 notice was immaterial where, unlike in Hanford, Katie Gatto’s claims had not yet ripened into a complaint. The trial court therefore did not make a decision based upon impermissible grounds, or misapply the law, when it prevented Appellant from introducing the letter that accompanied the § 5522 notice. The mere existence of the potential suit
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demonstrated Katie Gatto’s “possible bias and interest in the outcome of the case.” Id. This argument is therefore without merit.
Finally, Appellant contends that the Commonwealth failed to disclose text messages that Gatto had sent to detectives in violation of Brady. A Brady challenge presents a question of law, “for which our standard of review is de novo and our scope of review is plenary.” Commonwealth v. Velazquez, 307 A.3d 87, 94 (Pa.Super. 2023). Our High Court has explained:
[I]n order to establish a Brady violation, a defendant must show that: (1) evidence was suppressed by the state, either willfully or inadvertently; (2) the evidence was favorable to the defendant, either because it was exculpatory or because it could have been used for impeachment; and (3) the evidence was material, in that its omission resulted in prejudice to the defendant.
Commonwealth v. Willis, 46 A.3d 648, 656 (Pa. 2012) (citation omitted).
Appellant avers that all three elements of the Brady test are met where Gatto had long suffered from dissociative identity disorder and her mother filed a petition for guardianship in 2015, and the “suppressed text messages, later revealed only after a civil suit was filed, confirmed [Gatto]’s incapacity.” Appellant’s brief at 34. The Commonwealth suppressed this evidence, Appellant alleges, because it was not disclosed until Katie Gatto’s civil complaint was filed three months after Appellant’s conviction. Id. at 36. In the text messages, he explains, Gatto informed detectives about her “tragic mental health history and that she had been found incompetent by a judge with her mother as the court-appointed guardian for her.” Id. at 34. He maintains that this evidence was relevant as to whether Gatto was able to
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consent to intercepted communications as a confidential informant, and to impeach law enforcement officers on their reliance upon her. Id. at 35.
For its part, the Commonwealth states that the text messages were provided to Appellant during discovery. See Commonwealth’s brief at 34. Defense counsel admitted as much at trial where he stated that the defense team had received “‘the phone dump from [Gatto]’s phone, which contains text messages between her and Detective [Harold] Zech [of the Lackawanna County Detectives Narcotics Unit].’” Id. (quoting N.T., 6/3/20, at 58). The Commonwealth points out that defense counsel specifically cross-examined Detective Zech regarding a text message where Gatto proclaimed that she was subject to a guardianship and was incompetent. Id. at 34 (citing N.T., 6/3/20, at 58-59).
Our review of the certified record fails to support Appellant’s allegation that the Commonwealth, either inadvertently or purposefully, withheld text messages between Gatto and detectives discussing her guardianship and competency to serve as a confidential informant. As demonstrated by defense counsel’s questioning of Detective Zech, Appellant possessed the text messages relevant to her mental health and fitness at the time of trial. See N.T., 6/3/20, at 58. Appellant has not identified any additional undisclosed communications, let alone any that would have altered the outcome of the trial. Upon this record, Appellant’s Brady claim lacks any basis in law or fact.
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Overall, Appellant has failed to establish that he is entitled to relief on any of his claims. We accordingly affirm his judgment of sentence.
Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq. Prothonotary
Date: 08/24/2026