Accused Killer To Face Trial For Death Of Bristol Twp. Father

Accused killer Ckaron Handy’s trial is expected to take place this week before Judge Wallace Bateman.

Handy, 26, of Philadelphia, is accused of gunning down Kevin Battista, who was 30 at the time of his death, on Thursday, December 7, 2006.

On Monday at the Doylestown Courthouse, jury selection for the 26 year old’s trial took place, according to the Doylestown Intelligencer.

Handy, who has been in federal custody for several years in an unrelated case, shot Battista as he took the foot of the brake of his red Ford F-150 Supercab pickup truck while talking to the 26 year old about scoring cocaine at the intersection of Mustang and Aieracobra streets in the Bloomsdale-Fleetwing section of town, according to court papers.

Three shots were fired; one hit Battista in the back, Heckler said. The victim, father of two, then lost control of his truck and struck several parked cars on Fleetwing Drive.

Responding police arrived to find Battista with a slight pulse and began working to save the man’s life as an ambulance unit raced to the scene. By 3:14 a.m., Battista was pronounced dead by doctors at Frankford-Torresdale Hospital.

District Attorney David Heckler said at the time of Handy’s 2012 arrest that Battista, who was described as a recreational drug user, as “a hard-working union member who made a real bad choice on that evening to go into an area where he had not been before.”

Officials said in a 2012 press conference they suspect Handy thought Battista was an undercover police officer.

Battista was with his 21-year-old neighbor and ended up in Bloomsdale-Fleetwing looking for his girlfriend, who was the mother of his children.

Due to lack of witness cooperation, county prosecutors had to use a grand jury to compel some witnesses to speak in 2009.

Bucks County officials filed an arrest warrant against Handy in the case in 2012. He was arraigned shortly after and then turned over to federal authorities because he faced charged connected to another incident.

The .22 gun used in the homicide was recovered from the Susquehanna River in Central Pennsylvania in 2011. Over summer, local authorities were seeking more information on the recovery of the weapon.

On Monday, Handy’s cousin was arrested and accused of lying to officials about being a witness to the shooting. No motive for his alleged perjury was released.