WILKES-BARRE — The Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld the first-degree murder conviction and life sentence of Anthony Dion Shaw in the stabbing death of Cindy Lou Ashton in May 2018.
Shaw, 49, through his attorney, David V. Lampman II, challenged evidence recovered during a police welfare check from his East Orange, N.J., apartment was wrongly permitted to be used during his non-jury trial before Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Vough in April 2024.
An East Orange police officer conducted a welfare check on Shaw and was permitted inside his apartment by the building’s apartment manager on May 4, 2018.
Once inside, Shaw was found with self-inflicted slash wounds to his neck, along with a notebook containing a hand-written apology letter to Ashon’s family and bloody knives.
First Assistant District Attorney Anthony Ross and assistant district attorneys Brian Coleman and Gerry Scott were permitted to introduce the apology letter, knives and a receipt for the now closed Kmart store in Wilkes-Barre Township during the non-jury trial.
In his appeal, Shaw argued the notebook and knives were seized without a search warrant and the Kmart receipt found in his vehicle was taken from an illegal search warrant. Surveillance footage at Kmart showed Shaw purchasing a knife and socks.
The evidence had initially been rejected by Vough following a suppression hearing in 2019, but Vough overturned his decision allowing prosecutors to use the items found in Shaw’s apartment.
A three-member panel of the Superior Court rejected Shaw’s appeal, ruling Luzerne County Det. James Noone would have discovered the notebook, knives and Kmart receipt during the normal process of a criminal investigation, known as the inevitable discovery doctrine.
Ashton’s body was found with multiple stab wounds inside her Nicholson Street, Wilkes-Barre Township, apartment by a township police officer conducting a welfare check on May 2, 2018.
Noone testified during pre-trial court hearings that Shaw became known as a “person of interest” the same day Ashton’s body was found, as Ashton’s relatives had seen Shaw in Ashton’s apartment just hours after her body was found.
Shaw had traveled from New Jersey to speak with Ashton about their relationship.
During the investigation, Noone obtained surveillance footage showing a large man moving Ashton’s vehicle a block away, and Shaw’s vehicle parked in front of Ashton’s apartment the morning of May 2, 2018.
When Shaw’s address became known, detectives contacted East Orange police to inquire about Shaw only to learn Shaw was in a hospital due to a suicide attempt.
“…the Commonwealth demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that, notwithstanding the unlawful search of Shaw’s apartment by the East Orange Police Department, the evidence would have been discovered by lawful means,” the appellate court ruled.
