UPDATE: A jury convicted Christopher Lee Schwenk Jr. Of third-degree murder on July 27, 2015.
While two men were arguing in the 200 block of South Queen Street at East Hope Avenue on Nov. 6, 2013, Monique Nixon walked by shortly after 3 a.m.
At that moment, York City Police said, Christopher Lee Schwenk pulled a handgun and fired at Eddie Gallon III.
The bullet struck Nixon, 49, “an innocent bystander,” police said, in the chest.
Now, Schwenk, 26, of the 200 block of South Queen Street, is on trial for first- and third-degree murder.
Christopher Lee Schwenk
Follow live coverage of Schwenk’s jury trial in the York County Judicial Center below or at YDR911 or on Twitter @RickLeeYDR.
“She had a smile that would light up a room, and she always made everybody else smile,” Nixon’s husband, Mark
Mark and Monique Nixon
Nixon, told the Daily Record days after she was killed. “She was beautiful. She was a wife; she was a daughter; she was a mother; she was a sister; she was a grandmother.
“She called her mother on the phone every day, at least twice a day. Her whole life revolved around her family.”
Schwenk, who remains in York County Prison without bail, faces a mandatory life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder and a maximum of 40 years in prison if found guilty of third-degree murder.
Police said the dispute between Schwenk and Gallon was over another woman.
In January, Judge Thomas H. Kelley VI ruled that two jailhouse informants who claim Schwenk spoke to them about the killing may testify for the commonwealth.
