Jury deliberations will resume Friday, May 10, in the homicide case against an Allegheny County man in the June 2022 shooting death of an Ohio man in Muddy Creek Township.

The jury of five women and seven men began deliberating the case against Daniel C. Lloyd, 21, of Pitcairn, on Thursday afternoon, and they were released at 5:25 p.m. after about two hours.

Thursday was the fourth day of the trial in which Lloyd has been charged with homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide for allegedly shooting Frederick Orr, 32, of Columbus, Ohio, on June 11 in the township.

Orr’s body was found with three gunshot wounds — two in the back and one in the back of his head — along Kelly Road between East Portersville and Yellow Creek roads.

The Butler County district attorney’s office is trying to prove Lloyd hid in the back of an SUV owned by former co-defendant Nicole Schwartz, 39, of Ellwood City, when she picked up Orr after he was released from the county prison on June 10. Lloyd shot Orr early June 11 before leaving the body along the road, according to the prosecution.

Prosecutors said Schwartz ran drugs for Orr, but she used the crack cocaine and spent the $3,000 he stashed before he went to prison, and began a relationship with Lloyd after Orr was incarcerated.

Schwartz also was charged with homicide, but her case was severed from Lloyd’s and has been continued. She testified for the prosecution, which offered her a plea agreement in which she would serve nine to 20 years in prison followed by five years of probation.

State police filed the charges in both cases.

In his closing argument, defense attorney Joseph Scioscia III asked the jury to find Lloyd not guilty because the prosecution’s case is based on witnesses who admitted to using or dealing drugs, lied to protect themselves, and had their own reasons for wanting Orr dead.

In addition, Scioscia said none of the evidence proves Lloyd was ever in the back of Schwartz’s SUV, and the gun used in the shooting has not been found.

He said Schwartz lied in the initial statements she gave to state police and testified that she used drugs with her younger brother Dylan Hinchberger, who testified that he did not use drugs. Another witness testified that she bought drugs from him, Scioscia said.

Hinchberger lied to protect Schwartz because she became his legal guardian when he was 15 years old and let him move in with her when he was on parole after serving a prison sentence in Florida for an armed robbery, Scioscia said.

He said Hinchberger lives within walking distance of Schwartz’s home and could have removed laundry from a washer in her home that the prosecution claimed included the jacket Lloyd wore when he shot Orr.

Police photographed the clothes in the laundry machine on June 11, but most of the clothing, including the jacket, was missing when police returned later to retrieve it, according to testimony.

Scioscia said he is 6 feet, 2 inches tall and Lloyd is taller than that and could not fit in the back of Schwartz’s SUV.

State police pulled over the SUV with Schwartz and Orr inside before the shooting took place, but didn’t see anyone else in the vehicle, Scioscia said.

The prosecution argued Lloyd hid under a blanket in the rear of the SUV.

Scioscia also argued that one of the bullet holes in the front passenger door panel indicates that Orr was shot by someone in the driver’s seat.

Lloyd was in possession of a Glock .45-caliber handgun in March 2022, but other Glock models and another brand of gun leave the same marking on bullets as the one Lloyd had, Scioscia said.

Assistant district attorney Ben Simon said evidence from police about cellphone use and location data as well as license plate readers, and recordings of Lloyd talking on the phone confirm the testimony from the witnesses.

He also said Lloyd was found in Michigan several months after the shooting.

Cellphone data shows Schwartz leaving a motel in Franklin Township to pick up Lloyd and a video from a license plate reader shows Schwartz’s SUV being driven without a front passenger side window, which was recovered from the shooting scene, and a front seat passenger, Simon said.

He said Lloyd’s cellphone was turned off at 9 p.m. June 10 and was turned back on around 2 a.m. June 11 when he called Harry Koch of Butler for a ride. Schwartz’s SUV was left at her home, where police found it.

Koch testified that Lloyd called him early the morning of June 11 and asked to be picked up, and he picked up him and Schwartz at Schwartz’s home.

Hinchberger didn’t hide from police, but Schwartz and Lloyd did, Simon said. Schwartz was arrested June 24.

He said if Hinchberger was trying to frame Lloyd, he would have left Lloyd’s jacket in the washing machine.

Simon said Hinchberger’s fingerprints were found on tape that he testified he and Lloyd used to place cardboard over the windows of Schwartz’s garage door windows. He argued that Hinchberger would have worn gloves if he was trying to set up Lloyd.

He said Lloyd and Schwartz had motive to kill Orr: Lloyd wanted to replace Orr as the drug dealer in Butler, and Schwartz had spent his money and used his drugs.

Simon said Lloyd was recorded talking on the phone saying someone reported him to police and police know he was in Schwartz’s garage.

Simon said the three bullets that struck Orr were fired from behind him and there is no evidence that the shots were fired from close range.

Several witnesses, including Schwartz, said they saw Lloyd with a gun.