A Penn Hills man charged in a violent home invasion in which he beat a man to death was found guilty Thursday of second-degree murder.

Charles Pershing, 40, will be sentenced by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Kelly Bigley on Oct. 18.

He faces a mandatory prison term of life without parole. Second-degree murder is the death of a person during the commission of another felony. In his case, Pershing was also convicted of robbery and aggravated assault.

The jury deliberated for about four hours before finding Pershing guilty in connection with the Sept. 3, 2018, attack on Runnete Street.

According to investigators, Loxley Johns, 65, was just returning home when Pershing attacked him outside the house. Police found evidence of a struggle on the porch, including a shattered chair and blood.

Pershing then hogtied Johns and left him in the downstairs portion of the house, before moving upstairs and assaulting Johns’ fiancée, Monica McWilson.

McWilson testified on Monday that she heard someone in her adult daughter’s room around 4 a.m. When she went to check on the noise, she was attacked by a man she recognized from the neighborhood.

Although she was able to strike him in the face with her flat iron, McWilson said she was overpowered, blind-folded and had her hands bound.

She was left that way for about three hours before her attacked told her he was leaving, and that she had to wait 20 minutes before calling police.

She did as he directed, and then went downstairs where she found Johns. He was breathing, McWilson testified, but died two weeks later.

Johns died of blunt force trauma to his head, authorities said

Pershing was arrested Sept. 4. When police approached him, they said he was carrying a red duffle bag stolen from the couple’s home that contained their credit cards, Social Security cards and birth certificates.

Pershing also had a black eye.

At trial, the defense contended that Pershing got the black eye in a fight the day before and that he found the bag while walking home from work that night.

Pershing told police he was at home with his girlfriend at the time of the attacks.

However, in closing arguments, the prosecution noted that Pershing made 14 separate, unanswered calls to his girlfriend between 3 and 4 a.m. that day, and that he did not have the injury to his face in video taken from the bus he rode that night.

In addition, he could not have found the bag on his way home because it wasn’t stolen until after 4 a.m.

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