James J. Wyatt pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the Downtown Pittsburgh stabbing of Janice Purdue-Dance.

Monday's guilty pleas are convictions on the counts he admitted. They are not a sentence. WPXI and TribLive do not use the same name for the weapons count, and they do not describe the second woman's injuries the same way. Jan. 25 is a sentencing date. A 2019 statement by his lawyer that he was not competent is what that lawyer told WPXI then.

WPXI reported Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. EDT, that James J. Wyatt, 28, of McKeesport, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and aggravated assault, that court documents show the pleas, that he had been charged with criminal homicide and that count was changed, and that he also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense of making repairs/selling offensive weapons. TribLive reported he pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and one count of carrying a prohibited weapon, and that Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski will sentence him on Jan. 25. WPXI also reported sentencing is set for Jan. 25. It did not name the judge. The weapons count does not have the same name in the two stories. This file does not treat those names as the same offense.

WPXI reported investigators say Wyatt stabbed Janice Purdue-Dance, 61, of Erie, in the neck at a bus stop on Sixth Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh in August 2019, while she was speaking to a police officer who was checking on her, and that she later died at a hospital. It reported he then went after a second woman who was walking nearby, cut her face, and that she made a full recovery. TribLive, citing Assistant District Attorney Don Presutti, reported a Pittsburgh police officer on patrol saw a woman sleeping at a bus stop at Sixth Avenue and Smithfield Street and went to check on her around 11:40 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2019, that Wyatt struck Purdue-Dance twice in the neck, and that he then punched another woman before the officer subdued him. TribLive reported officers then realized the women had been stabbed, that Purdue-Dance died a short time later at UPMC Mercy, and that the other woman had injuries to her mouth and bruising on her temple. Speaking and sleeping are not the same account. A cut to the face with a full recovery, and injuries to the mouth and temple, are not the same description. The second woman is not named.

WPXI, citing court documents, reported that at the time Wyatt was serving a three-year probation after pleading guilty in 2016 to gun and drug charges and to causing an accident involving death or personal injury. It reported court documents showed he was scheduled for a mental-health evaluation in December 2025 and that his trial had been scheduled to begin Monday. TribLive reported Presutti told the court that Wyatt told investigators he did not recall hurting the women and that he had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that court records show he has been sent for mental-health treatment repeatedly since his arrest. WPXI reported on Sept. 27, 2019, that his attorney said he was not competent to stand trial, that the lawyer said he had been diagnosed years earlier with paranoid schizophrenia and depression, and that the lawyer said he had spent two years in a mental facility. Those are statements by the lawyer in 2019 and by Wyatt to investigators, as the outlets reported them. They are not a finding entered at Monday's hearing. Monday's hearing was a guilty plea.

The third-degree murder plea, the aggravated-assault plea, and the weapons plea are what he admitted. Jan. 25 is the sentencing date both outlets reported. Neither reported a prison term. The 2016 probation is a prior case. It is not this sentence. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.