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09-06-2026, 11:00 AM
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Shaun Fairman State Police Interview in the Shooting of Richard Shotts
An Indiana County Common Pleas jury convicted Shaun Fairman on April 25, 2013, of second-degree murder and other charges in the fatal shooting of Richard Earl Shotts near Trade City, Pennsylvania, and Fairman was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Just after midnight on Sunday, June 3, 2012, Fairman, 33, drove to the property along Route 210 in North Mahoning Township, parked on a neighbor's land up the hill and walked down to the house carrying a .45-caliber revolver and a .30-06 rifle. Shotts refused to let him inside and argued with him from the kitchen while Fairman remained on the porch. Fairman fired through a window, striking Shotts in the neck. Shotts died of the wound. Fairman broke through the window and moved through the house looking for his wife, Jessica Fairman. She had sent her mother and her children, ages 2 and 4, to the attic and armed herself. When Fairman entered a second-floor bedroom, she fired three shots, hitting him twice in the shoulder, and held him there until police arrived. She was not charged, and the district attorney said she acted in self-defense. Fairman was treated at Punxsutawney Hospital and released into custody. Shaun and Jessica Fairman's marriage had broken down by the spring of 2012. He had been served with a Protection from Abuse order about two weeks before the shooting, and divorce papers arrived in the mail the previous day. Shotts, Jessica's 55-year-old father, was from Rural Valley. A retired coal miner, he worked in the maintenance department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Jessica's parents planned to spend the night at the house because they feared Fairman would come there and cause trouble. Pennsylvania State Police charged Fairman with criminal homicide and held him in the Indiana County Jail without bond. Trooper Shawn Compton led Fairman's recorded interview at the state police station in Punxsutawney on June 3, 2012, hours after the shooting. A second trooper from the Clarion barracks and a detective from the Indiana County district attorney's office were present. Fairman was told the session was being recorded on audio and video, received the rights warning and waiver, and agreed to give a statement. Fairman described arriving around midnight, parking on a neighbor's property and walking to the house. He said Shotts came to the window, put a gun in his face and threatened to kill him. Investigators questioned him about the two firearms he had brought. At trial, an officer testified that Fairman said, "I pulled up and shot him one time," and, "I smashed the window I shot through, then I tried to get my wife upstairs to help me with him." Jessica Fairman testified for the prosecution. Defense attorneys Robert Dougherty and Donald McKee argued that Fairman was intoxicated and mentally impaired and had gone to the house to kill himself in front of his wife, not to kill anyone. The jury found Fairman guilty of second-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and one count of burglary, and acquitted him of a theft count. Second-degree murder in Pennsylvania is a killing committed during a felony and carries a mandatory life sentence. Fairman was sentenced on May 28, 2013, and is held at the State Correctional Institution at Forest, in Marienville. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania rejected an appeal in March 2019, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied further review without comment on August 22, 2019. Days later, new attorney Andrew Francis Skala filed a motion for post-conviction collateral relief. No outcome of that motion has been publicly reported. The video is a police interview-room recording that runs about 44 minutes. It shows the interview itself, without narration or a presenter.
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