David Sumney’s half-sister has been waiting about 1,445 days to see him face a criminal trial.
The countdown began on Sept. 4, 2019, when Sumney was arrested outside their uncle’s funeral in connection with the brutal torture and murder of their 67-year-old mother, Margaret. Pittsburgh prosecutors alleged that Sumney beat their mother and shoved her inside a bathroom before taking dozens of photos of the horrific scene.
At the time, Ellen, who asked that her full name be withheld, told The Daily Beast she had faith that justice would be served for her mother. But today, even though Sumney was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years for third-degree murder last November, she doesn’t feel that’s happened.
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That’s because, over the objections of some family members, prosecutors agreed to a controversial plea deal that kept Sumney from standing trial.
Ellen said that she never expected that the first time her brother would face a trial would be without the presence of a jury—on an old DUI charge where the maximum sentence is 5 years in prison.
“I still can’t believe we didn’t get a trial for the murder of my mother,” Ellen said. “And now [prosecutors] are giving him a trial for a 2017 DUI that had no victims. It seems backward. DUIs are serious, but given the magnitude of his past cases, this is so small. Why does this see a trial but my mother’s death does not?”
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to The Daily Beast that Sumney will face a non-jury trial in Allegheny County Court starting Aug. 21 after 12 delays over the last six years. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will call witnesses, produce evidence, and make objections during the proceedings, but the verdict will be up to Judge Edward Borkowski—the same jurist who denied his family’s request to overturn the murder plea deal.
Sumney, 33, faces charges of careless driving and driving under the influence in connection with the July 28, 2017, incident. A criminal complaint states that after Sumney got into a single car accident, he admitted he had been drinking wine and that his wheel “slipped.” Sumney later asked local police to give him “a break” because he was a Navy SEAL and refused to take a blood alcohol test, the complaint states. A Navy spokesperson previously told The Daily Beast that there was no record of Sumney in their system.
The defense lawyer listed on his criminal docket passed away in June, and The Daily Beast could not identify who is representing him. After the conclusion of the DUI case, a DA spokesperson said that Sumney would be extradited to New Jersey to face criminal charges after an ex-girlfriend alleges he waterboarded and strangled her in a hotel room in July 2019.
“It is not justice,” his aunt, Ann Shade, told The Daily Beast. “It’s like the DUI is more important than murder.”
Ellen said she will never forget the events of summer 2019, when Sumney murdered their mother after torturing her inside her home.
“It still makes me sick to think about it,” Ellen said. “It was so horrible, so violent.”
After several family members reported they had not heard from Margaret, authorities entered her home and found signs of a struggle. Downstairs, police found three trash bags stuffed with gloves, a nearly empty bottle of ammonia, bleach, and blood-stained towels.
Upstairs, Margaret was in the bathtub. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office concluded that Margaret suffered contusions on her body, lacerations on her face, multiple fractured ribs, and a spinal fracture in the attack.
David Sumney and his mother
Ann ShadeProsecutors said that Sumney documented the scene in 277 photos, which included shots of his mother’s body and selfies with blood on his face. He also did computer searches on questions like “How long does it take before a body starts to decompose?” and “How long do you wait to dispose of a body?”
Much of the family felt Sumney deserved a life sentence, and they were stunned to learn that prosecutors struck a plea deal for a single charge of third-degree murder.
“I cannot believe I would let myself get in such a state where I could do something so bad, so horrible. I cannot believe what I did—that I killed my own mother,” Sumney said during his November sentencing. “I cannot stop thinking about it. I think about it every day. I’m sorry, but sorry doesn’t cut it. I handled things as badly as a person could have.”
In addition to the family’s outrage over the deal, Ellen said she was shocked the prosecution even signed off on the agreement because of Sumney’s criminal history.
Starting in 2015, Sumney had been charged with harassment, aggravated assault, assaulting his mother, and allegedly beating up his 71-year-old father, but was never convicted of a felony.
According to court records viewed by The Daily Beast, some of the charges were either downgraded or he pleaded to misdemeanors, and he never received more than eight months in confinement or probation. While the case conclusions are not uncommon, Sumney’s family believes that if the court had taken a harder stance, Marget might still be alive.
“He should have been held more accountable,” Ellen said.
After the DUI trial is over, Sumney’s family plans to pivot their attention to New Jersey, where Sumney still faces several charges in connection with an alleged July 2019 attack on his ex-girlfriend. Sumney has not entered a plea there, and it is not clear if he has a lawyer. The Atlantic County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The ex-girlfriend, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, previously told The Daily Beast that she had an on-and-off relationship with Sumney after meeting him online in August 2018. She said he falsely claimed he was a Navy SEAL and showed her photos he said were of him in the desert.
During a July 2019 beach vacation in Atlantic City, the ex-girlfriend said, Sumney choked her until she passed out, punched her in the face, and eventually waterboarded her in the bathroom. before a bellhop knocked on the door, allowing her to escape.
“Reliving some of the trauma of what happened is going to be very hard,” she said. “It’s going to be a roller coaster. But I am ready to do this to get justice.”
