SMETHPORT, Pa. — Bradford’s city police chief and a forensic pathologist both gave testimony Monday that refuted homicide defendant Thomas McElhattan’s claim that he somehow suddenly “snapped” and fired five bullets at his victim from an entryway across a small living room.

Chief Mike Ward, who interviewed McElhattan shortly after his arrest on June 7 for the murder of Rebecca Haynes, said evidence shows the shooter was more deliberate when he entered, exited, then re-entered the victim’s home, walked across the living room, drew his handgun and fired the first two shots within 3 feet of the victim.

Thomas McElhattan

The Bradford Era

The next three shots were fired with the muzzle within inches of the victim’s body, with Ward characterizing the shooting as “an execution” of Haynes, 21, with whom McElhattan, 43, admitted to having sexual relations. Haynes’ 1-year-old daughter, brought to the scene by McElhattan, was in the house when her mother was killed.

Dr. Todd Luckasevic, a forensic pathologist affiliated with the Erie County coroner’s office, performed an autopsy on Haynes’ body and, noting the evidence of powder burns on her skin and clothing, offered expert testimony on the range of the shots cited by Ward.

Any one of the five shots would have been fatal, according to testimony.

The defendant admits to the shooting, saying it resulted from Haynes’ nagging and ongoing threats to reveal their relationship to his then-wife — Haynes’ daughter is a granddaughter of McElhattan’s now ex-wife. Testimony during the trial revealed that the defendant often cared for the child, while he also often spent time alone with Haynes.

“He said he was ‘fed up’ and that he ‘wasn’t feeling well,’” Ward said of McElhattan’s explanation for the shooting, which occurred in the midst of Haynes sending him angry text and SnapChat messages that included an assertion that she had informed his wife about their relations as well as a threat to report him for kidnapping her child.

The chief added that McElhattan stated “he had no safe way to get her to stop” the text and social media exchanges. Ward also noted that throughout the interview, McElhattan was “calm … there was little or almost no emotion from him.”

Ward also testified that, when informed during the interview that Haynes was dead, McElhattan responded by saying, “I figured,” and again appeared otherwise unmoved.

McKean County Chief Detective Ryan D. Yingling, who also took part in the post-arrest interview of McElhattan, testified about what he saw as the lack of emotion or remorse on the defendant’s part as well.

Yingling also said McElhattan’s claim that, while leaving Haynes’ house he abruptly turned and fired at her from the entryway to the living room because he had “snapped,” was not corroborated by video or forensic evidence.

THE STATE AND DEFENSE REST

McKean County District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg-Shaffer rested her case Monday afternoon, while Public Defender Phil Clabaugh called no witnesses on behalf of McElhattan, who appears to be hoping the jury will find him guilty of a lesser count of criminal homicide.

In her opening statement, Shaffer insisted to the jury that there was enough evidence to show premeditation on McElhattan’s part to justify a conviction of criminal homicide in the first degree, which would result in a mandatory life sentence by Pennsylvania law. The commonwealth is not seeking the death penalty in the case.

County Common Pleas Court Judge Michele Alfieri-Causer told the jury they can expect to hear closing arguments from the attorneys Tuesday morning and they would then begin deliberations.

EARLIER TESTIMONY

Bradford City Police Officer Tyler Blair testified about how he used city and private security camera video to track McElhattan’s movements from his home on Rutherford Run Road to Haynes’ home at 59 Jefferson St., leading up to the moments in which he shot her to death in her living room.

Key moments in the combined video, which was presented to the jury, showed McElhattan getting into his pickup truck and pulling out of his driveway — the video showed he eventually arrived at Jefferson Street a few minutes later and, carrying the child, he stepped up on Haynes’ front porch.

Unable to enter, and still holding the child, McElhattan used his cell phone to call Haynes. She eventually opened the door and he entered. A few minutes later, McElhattan stepped back out onto the porch and remained there, still on his phone. After a time, he re-entered the front door.

It was at some point after that moment of re-entry that McElhattan shot Haynes to death.

Ward and Yingling both testified that the video evidence refutes the defendant’s claim that he was leaving but, at the entryway of the small mudroom between the front door and living room, he suddenly turned and fired at her across the living room.

Video shows him leaving the house again, carrying the 1-year-old, and leaving the scene in his truck. McElhattan called 911 from his home a few minutes later to report the shooting and he was arrested.

His former stepson, Devon Milne, testified about the scene when McElhattan returned to the Rutherford Run Road home, where Milne and some friends were target shooting on the range at the rear of the property. Milne said McElhattan handed his daughter to him and matter-of-factly stated he had shot her mother.

“He was calm — disturbingly calm,” Milne said, who later added he never knew of the relationship between McElhattan and Haynes. “I don’t understand how someone could be so calm after doing something like that.”

MCELHATTAN’S EX-WIFE ON THE STAND

The defendant’s ex-wife, Shanel McElhattan, testified that at some point she had begun to suspect something was going on between her then-husband of about eight years and Haynes. She said that McElhattan spent an inordinate amount of time caring for the baby and he contrived reasons to visit Haynes.

The witness testified she received cryptic texts from Haynes that she “needed to know something” and at one point she received a text from the deceased that she knew “things that would not just ruin her life but many lives.”

Shanel McElhattan said, possibly in April 2025, she and her then-husband were driving to Olean and again talking about Haynes’ effect on their own relationship: “He said, ‘Maybe I should shoot her.’”

The witness also testified that her ex-husband, a U.S. Army and National Guard veteran of 18 years, started carrying a handgun everywhere he went during the Covid pandemic in 2020.

VICTIM’S MOTHER TESTIFIES

Jamie Haynes, Rebecca’s mother, testified that, while already concerned about what she termed the “toxic relationship” between her daughter and Milne, she learned about the affair between her daughter and McElhattan in early 2025.

She related an exchange in late March 2025 in which McElhattan claimed that if Rebecca told Shanel McElhattan about the affair he would kill himself, calling it a “permanent solution.”

Jamie Haynes, recalling June 7, said she saw on Facebook that something had happened on Jefferson Street “and I started to worry.”

“I started calling (Rebecca) and texting her, trying to figure out what was happening,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was my child. I learned from a friend that it was (Rebecca). … When I went to the police station I thought it was Devon (who killed her). I found out it was Thomas.”