Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse told a panel of jurors Tuesday that he needed to be “very, terrifyingly clear” with them about the killing of Michael Garr.
“There is no backstory. There is nothing that led to this,” Rouse said of the 15-year-old’s fatal stabbing.
“This is the type of random, terrifying, senseless act of violence that we need to pretend doesn’t happen,” he added. “But we know it does.”
Garr, a sophomore at Upper Darby High School, was killed in April 2023 by Marson Weh, a man to whom the teenager had “no earthly connection,” according to Rouse. After stalking Garr for more than a mile as the teen walked through Drexel Hill, Weh, 26, stabbed him 11 times, including once in the neck.
Weh, of Clifton Heights, is on trial this week on murder and related crimes. The motive, if Weh had one, is unclear, Rouse said.
His attorney, Ian McCurdy, urged jurors to withhold judgment until after seeing all of the evidence in the case.
“These allegations are horrific. They are heartbreaking. They are gut-wrenching; a 15-year-old boy is dead,” McCurdy said. “But at this time, they are only allegations.”
Extensive surveillance footage allowed investigators to track both Garr and Weh before, during and after the stabbing, according to testimony Tuesday.
Garr, walking home from Clifton Field with his girlfriend, eventually split off from her and continued alone. Weh can be seen following him, at some points sprinting to catch up with him.
As the two approached Brunswick Avenue near Bridge Street in Drexel Hill, Weh attacked Garr with a knife, and then sprinted from the scene. Garr, mortally wounded, ran in the opposite direction, desperate for help.
Around that same time, Ian Coughlan was driving home from Philadelphia. As he paused to make a left turn, Garr ran up to him, clutching his neck tightly.
The teen was struggling to speak, Coughlan said Tuesday. When he lifted his hands from his neck, blood began to pour out.
“He couldn’t speak, but he was able to squeeze out three words,” Coughlan testified. “’He stabbed me.’”
A recording of Coughlan’s 911 call, played in court, captured the chaotic scene, with him begging for dispatchers to send medics as he urges Garr to stay with him.
Shortly after police arrived at the scene, Garr went into cardiac arrest and died.
“I have a son, and he’s 15 now. It’s just scary for something like this to happen,” Coughlan said outside the county courthouse after his testimony. ”I tried to help, but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.
“I think about him every day.”
As Garr’s family wept inside the courtroom, some having to be excused as the 911 call was played, Weh sat with his eyes cast down, mumbling wordlessly to himself.
The same surveillance footage that recorded Weh pursuing Garr helped investigators identify him through facial recognition software, according to prosecutors. Officers then conducted surveillance on Weh’s home over the next few days and observed him at various times wearing clothing matching what was seen in the video.
Weeks later, officers stopped Weh as he left his home, taking him into custody in connection with an active arrest warrant out of Ohio for a carjacking.
Weh denied killing Garr. But a dried blood stain on thermal underwear he was wearing tested positive for the teen’s DNA — Rouse, the prosecutor, said it was in the exact location where the pocket of his pants would have been.
A knife found in Weh’s backpack had been wiped clean. But a detective separated the blade from its handle, revealing dried blood that had seeped underneath.
It was a match for Garr’s.
Weh’s trial is expected to last through Thursday before Judge G. Michael Green.
Later this year, he is scheduled to appear before Green in a separate trial for attempted murder for allegedly slashing a pregnant woman’s throat and stabbing her in the abdomen during a robbery that took place two months before Garr’s killing.