More charges filed against man accused of killing grandmother

Pictured: Anthony David Mercado. Northampton County Sheriff’s Office picture.

By Linda Cicoira

Four more charges, these alleging drug crimes, were filed in Northampton General District Court Wednesday against the man accused of killing his 73-year-old grandmother last weekend in their Cape Charles home.

The latest charges made against 25-year-old Anthony David Mercado, of Tazewell Street, are possession of a gun with a Schedule I or II drug, two counts of possession of controlled substances, and unauthorized distribution of controlled drug paraphernalia. The latter charge is a misdemeanor, the rest are felonies.

The suspect was previously charged with second-degree murder in the death of Jane Grigsby McKinley, shooting in an occupied dwelling, and reckless handling of a firearm, which are also felonies.

Mercado is being held in the Eastern Shore Regional Jail. The alleged crimes occurred on Feb. 24.

When police met Mercado on the stairs of the house on the day of the shooting, He “told us 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 in a report. “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, who had some college credits, had been living in the community for three months and had been unemployed since the start of the pandemic. McKinley was his only relative in the area. He was “financially supported by family and money from savings from work before the pandemic.”