Jaymier Perry pleaded guilty to first-degree murder three years after Derrick Harris Jr. was fatally shot outside their Pittsburgh school.

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Jaymier Perry was sentenced to 35 years to life in state prison for the 2023 killing of 15-year-old classmate Derrick Harris Jr. outside Oliver Citywide Academy, bringing a criminal case that began when both boys were 15 to its final trial-court stage.

The sentence followed Perry’s June 24 guilty plea to first-degree murder. Prosecutors said Perry carried his mother’s 9 mm handgun to the North Side school on May 24, 2023, approached Harris as students were beginning to arrive and fired repeatedly. The agreed sentence gives Perry the possibility of parole after serving the 35-year minimum rather than requiring him to spend the rest of his life in prison without release. Perry was a juvenile when Harris was killed, a fact that shaped the penalty available in the case even though he was prosecuted in adult court.

The killing unfolded shortly before the start of the school day. Pittsburgh police said the city’s gunfire-detection system registered 11 shots at about 7:25 a.m. near the front of Oliver Citywide Academy on Brighton Road. Officers responding to the school found Harris suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and began emergency care. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition and died there. Police said another officer saw Perry running away while carrying a handgun. He was detained near the school, and officers recovered a 9 mm pistol that investigators said belonged to his mother.

Surveillance video became a central part of the prosecution’s account. Police and prosecutors said the footage showed Perry and Harris near the school’s front steps before the shooting and showed Perry assaulting Harris after the gunfire ended. At Perry’s guilty-plea hearing, Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Ryan Kiray said Perry fired until the handgun was empty and that Harris was struck 10 times. Prosecutors also said the video showed Perry kick and stomp Harris after he had fallen. The description of the attack was presented in court as part of the factual basis for Perry’s first-degree murder plea.

Investigators said Perry gave them an explanation for the attack soon after his arrest. According to the prosecution’s account, Perry said Harris had taken a pair of his Beats headphones two days earlier. Perry also told detectives that he knew he and Harris were often among the first students to arrive at school in the morning. Prosecutors said that knowledge helped explain why the two teenagers encountered one another at the entrance before most students had reached the building. The headphones dispute was the motive Perry described to authorities; the available record does not establish any broader motive beyond what Perry told investigators.

Kiray also recounted a statement that prosecutors said Perry made after detectives asked why he continued assaulting Harris once the shooting had stopped. Perry told investigators that if someone was going to shoot another person, the person might as well “finish the job,” according to the prosecutor’s account. Law enforcement reports said Perry laughed while discussing the attack. The remark became one of the most striking details disclosed in the case, but the later sentencing hearing also presented a different record of Perry’s development and mental competency during the years he spent awaiting resolution of the charge.

Perry’s defense attorney told the court that Perry had substantial developmental difficulties while growing up. According to the defense account reported from the sentencing hearing, Perry was nonverbal until about age 4 and experienced significant developmental delays. His attorney also said Perry suffered the death of a 9-year-old sister when he was young. Those facts did not dispute that Perry killed Harris, and Perry had already admitted first-degree murder. They were offered as part of the background the court considered in imposing the negotiated sentence on a defendant who had been 15 at the time of the crime.

The case also moved slowly because of questions about whether Perry was competent to stand trial. In December 2023, his attorney said a medical evaluation was being completed to determine whether Perry understood the charges against him and his legal rights. Later reporting from his defense said Perry was found incompetent for an extended period after his arrest before eventually making enough progress for the case to continue. Competency addresses whether a defendant can understand the proceedings and assist in a defense; it does not determine whether the person committed the charged act. Perry ultimately appeared in court in June 2026 and entered his guilty plea.

That plea resolved the most serious question before a possible trial. Online court records reported by local news organizations showed Perry pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder. Two firearms counts were withdrawn, while the homicide case was resolved through the first-degree murder conviction. The agreement called for 35 years to life, the same sentence imposed in July. Pennsylvania ordinarily treats first-degree murder as one of its most severely punished crimes, but constitutional limits on mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders meant Perry’s age at the time of the killing had to be reflected in the sentencing process.

Perry addressed Harris’ mother at sentencing and apologized for the harm he caused. He said he took responsibility for his actions and was not trying to make excuses, according to reporting from the hearing. He also apologized to his own mother. The courtroom statement came more than three years after investigators said Perry described the shooting to detectives in stark terms. His apology could not change the conviction or the negotiated prison term, but it marked the first public account from the sentencing hearing of Perry directly acknowledging the damage inflicted on Harris’ family.

Harris’ relatives had spoken publicly much earlier, in the first days after his death. His mother, Erin Krall, told CBS Pittsburgh that she and her son had been exchanging text messages about his approaching 16th birthday shortly before he left for school on the morning he was killed. She said she had sent him to school expecting him to return home. A fundraising page created for the family described Harris as a kindhearted son and brother who enjoyed video games and sports and whose humor was important to the people close to him. Those memories provided a view of Harris apart from the crime that came to define the public record surrounding his death.

The shooting also became part of a broader period of turmoil at Oliver Citywide Academy, a Pittsburgh public school serving students with special education needs. Classes moved to remote instruction after Harris was killed. The school had experienced other serious incidents before and after the May 2023 shooting, and the district later stopped operating Oliver in its previous form, relocating students to satellite locations. Harris’ killing therefore had consequences beyond the criminal prosecution, affecting students, staff and families who had to leave the building where the attack occurred and continue schooling elsewhere.

Perry, now 18, will begin serving the 35-year minimum term imposed for Harris’ murder and will remain subject to a life maximum. Any future possibility of parole would come only after the minimum sentence and through the applicable state process; the sentence does not promise his release. The July sentencing closes the prosecution in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court unless later appellate or post-conviction proceedings are filed. For Harris’ family, the court case has reached a judgment, more than three years after he was killed on the steps of the school he had gone to that morning.

Author note: Last updated September 8, 2026.