WILLIAMSPORT – The Lycoming County District Attorney’s Office is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the suspect in a fatal shooting outside a suburban Williamsport restaurant in March.

The reward is being offered because attempts to locate 17-year-old Ja’hsir Legare have been unsuccessful, District Attorney Thomas A. Marino said Thursday.

State Trooper Brian Siefert identified the suspected shooter while testifying last month at the preliminary hearing of the teen’s mother, Johniece Francine Legare, 37, who was detained pending trial.

Authorities continue to believe Ja’hsir is in Philadelphia, where he has relatives, Marino said.

At Legare’s hearing, testimony indicated that cell phone tracking revealed that she and her two sons had driven to Philadelphia following the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Ahmeen Palmer of Williamsport on March 2.

Ja’bree Stark’s younger son was taken into custody in Philadelphia. Charges against him in connection with the shooting were dropped at a juvenile detention hearing.

Legare is the only one currently charged in the case. Her indictment is sealed, but Marino said it also includes accessory to murder. No formal charges have been filed against Ja’hsir, he said.

The charge of aiding and abetting premeditated murder and other charges against 19-year-old Ibn Hakiem Hunter of Williamsport were dropped following his preliminary hearing last month.

After a meeting with investigating state troopers, charges will be filed again against Hunter and Starks, Marino said.

The fatal shooting occurred in the parking lot of the Fridays restaurant in the Williamsport suburb of Loyalsock Twp.

The investigation revealed that two small groups of young people happened to go to the restaurant to celebrate birthdays, Siefert said.

Palmer was in one group and Starks was in the other, he said. Palmer’s public slap of Starks two weeks earlier is believed to have been a factor in the altercation, he said.

Siefert’s statement also included the following:

Numerous phone calls followed, Starks calling his brother and Ja’hsir calling his mother. It is assumed that they all wanted to let everyone know that Palmer was at the restaurant.

Additionally, Hunter, who was finishing up work at Hillside Assisted Living, received a call and had arranged for an Uber driver to take him home.

Instead, he paid the driver an extra $10 to take him to Fridays Restaurant, where he met Legare, who had come with her older son.

Johniece Legare approached the group of teenagers and said something to the effect that her son would compete in a one-on-one fight with Palmer.

At 6:30 p.m., five shots are fired. Palmer is hit in the back of the head and both legs. Two parked vehicles are also hit.

Legare, her two sons and a teenager who lived with them rushed to their apartment in the Penn Vale social housing project, also located in the township, before leaving for Philadelphia.

It did not come up during the preliminary hearing, but a police affidavit said Legare allegedly told another inmate in the county jail that her son had shot a man on Friday and that she was taking him out of town.