CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — A man accused of killing a Maine resident on Interstate 81 in 2014 has been extradited to Pennsylvania to stand trial and is being held in the Franklin County Jail there, according to the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland.
John W. Strawser Jr., 40, was being held in West Virginia after being sentenced to life in prison for killing his former girlfriend there.
In Pennsylvania, Strawser is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of motorist Timothy “Asti” Davison, who was from Poland, Maine.
Franklin County District Attorney Matthew Fogal wrote in an email that he was not seeking the death penalty in the case, and Davison’s family is aware of that.
At his preliminary arraignment Monday in Franklin County, Strawser was denied bail and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for next Tuesday.
Before dawn on Jan. 4, 2014, Davison was driving north on I-81 near the Maryland-Pennsylvania border when he called 911 twice to report that he was being chased and shot at by someone in a dark-colored pickup truck. Investigators allege that Strawser attacked Davison’s vehicle, forced him off the highway near Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and shot him, in a case of mistaken identity.
Police got their break in the case when Jamie Breese contacted them on April 20, 2015, and said that the night of Davison’s shooting in January 2014, Strawser had threatened Breese and his wife. The pair had left a bar and headed north on I-81 in a silver Honda Pilot, which looked similar to Davison’s Mitsubishi Montero.
Davison was run off the road and shot at about the same time Breese and his wife were driving on the same stretch of road.
“Breese believed that Strawser was hunting him and his wife the night Davison was killed,” according to a court affidavit filed in the case. Breese said Strawser would sometimes “get in rages,” the affidavit said.
Strawser, who is from West Virginia, used to have a relationship with Breese’s wife and had stalked her, and Breese had been told that Strawser would kill Breese to get to his wife.
Cellphone tower information showed Strawser was near the Maryland-Pennsylvania border three minutes before Davison called 911.
Prosecutors said Strawser’s DNA matched that taken from shell casings found at the scene of Davison’s killing.
Strawser’s pickup truck also matched the description of one shown in video from a highway department traffic camera at the scene of the shooting, and matches evidence collected at the scene. The truck had been repainted and had new parts added.
Police later recovered a Rossi Ranch Hand pistol and .44-caliber shell casings they believe belonged to Strawser and that were used in the shooting, hidden in a box in a field. A friend of Strawser led police to them after a shooting in April in which Strawser was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Amy Lou Buckingham, in Preston County, West Virginia.
After Strawser’s arrest in West Virginia in 2015, an acquaintance alerted police in Pennsylvania.
Theresa Allocca, Davison’s mother, said she is grateful that the man accused of killing her son is another step closer to trial.
“There’s a lot of legal steps and it’s been tiresome,” she said Tuesday. “It’s just a matter of hanging in there.”
Allocca said she was in touch with West Virginia’s extradition coordinator and a Pennsylvania victims’ advocacy group, so she knew that Strawser was close to being extradited.
Allocca said she hasn’t been told when a trial might start, but she plans to attend.
Press Herald Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy contributed to this report.
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