Cape Charles man indicted for Premeditated Murder in death of his grandmother

By Linda Cicoira

Indictments handed down by a Northampton Grand Jury Monday accuse a young Cape Charles man of first-degree murder in the death of his grandmother and three related firearm offenses.

Twenty-five-year-old Anthony David Mercado, who lived with the victim, 73-year-old Jane Grigsby McKinley, at her Tazewell Street home, was initially charged with second-degree murder. The prosecution told the panel that the shooting death was premeditated, according to the indictment. That charge was earlier certified by a district court judge.

Mercado was also indicted on counts of maliciously discharging a firearm in an occupied dwelling, unlawfully shooting while committing a felony, and using a gun in the crime. Misdemeanor charges filed against him include – recklessly handling a gun, destruction of less than $1,000 worth of property, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a Schedule VI drug. The white powder, confiscated during the investigation and first thought to be cocaine, contained sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim, antibiotics used to treat various infections.

When police met Mercado on the stairs of the house on the day of the shooting, records state he told the authorities that “he had just shot someone who entered his house and she was upstairs and not alive.” Officer T. Lynch of the Cape Charles Police Department wrote, “I found the body of his grandma upstairs. He was later interviewed (and) he told us he shot her multiple times as she was stepping away from him.”

The file also showed that Mercado had been living with the victim for three or four months and had been unemployed since the beginning of the pandemic. McKinley was his only relative in the area. The defendant was “financially supported by family and money from savings from work before the pandemic.”