CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) — The teen accused of gunning down a man in the streets of Johnstown has been brought back from Las Vegas and lodged in Cambria County Prison.
Michael Cogdell, 18, of Pittsburgh, who is accused of killing 41-year-old Marvin Price, of Johnstown, was extradited from Nevada to Pennsylvania Thursday night. Cogdell was arraigned on his charges Friday, March 24 and is lodged in Cambria County Prison. He faces one count of criminal homicide, a non-bailable offense, and two counts of aggravated assault.
Cogdell was caught on surveillance from numerous buildings walking to the 600 block of Park Avenue in the Moxham area of Johnstown on Monday, Jan. 23, where the deadly shooting took place, according to detectives. New details have been released on what exactly those videos showed.
It appears that as Cogdell was walking, Price was driving and slowed down as he passed Cogdell on Park Avenue, according to the affidavit of probable cause. Price then made a U-turn and parked near where Cogdell was standing. Then, investigators noted Cogdell was seen approaching the vehicle, leaning into the front seat, and then sprinting away through the St. Patrick’s School parking lot. Price’s vehicle did not move from where he was parked, and no other passengers were in the vehicle.
However, 26-year-old Lexus Simms, of Johnstown, who described Price as her husband, was following him in a Jeep Wrangler. She pulled the Jeep into the middle of the road next to Price, got out, checked on him, and then called 911, police noted. She is also facing charges in the investigation for allegedly taking Cogdell’s cell phone from the murder scene, something detectives learned later in the investigation.
Shortly after the murder, which took place around 2 p.m., detectives said an officer stopped a man near the crime scene as he matched the physical description of the suspect. However, he was subsequently released due to not watching the clothing description nor did he match the suspect on the surveillance video. It should be noted that the officer who stopped the man had not seen the video at that point.
When a detective from the Cambria County Drug Task Force saw the video, he believed the suspect was “Mike.”
At this point, detectives started reaching out to other departments in Pittsburgh and Indiana to see if they were familiar with Cogdell. It turns out, he was under investigation in Pittsburgh for an unrelated incident. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police passed Cogdell’s information and a photograph to Johnstown detectives who were then able to confirm Cogdell as the shooter.
Further into the investigation, detectives received a call from one of the businesses that caught Cogdell on security camera informing them that he was caught throwing his coat into a brush pile in the area of Bond Street and 300 Place in Moxham. Police went and found the jacket, and inside it was a gun.
On Feb. 3, detectives interviewed two witnesses. One witness said Cogdell had been staying with them for a while on Cypress Avenue in Johnstown, though they had not heard from him since the day of the murder.
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The second witness was able to tell police that Cogdell left the Cypress Avenue home sometime between 12:30 and 2 p.m. wearing a red, gray and white jacket belonging to them. This is the same description of the jacket Cogdell was seen discarding on surveillance video that police collected. This witness also claimed they hadn’t heard from Cogdell since the killing.
Cogdell has a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 3 before Magisterial District Judge Kevin Price in Johnstown.