Thanks to DNA evidence, charges have been filed in a case that's been under investigation for three years.

Tre Goins faces a list of charges — including aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person and possession of a firearm — in connection with a shots fired incident in 2022, the Rostraver Township Police Department said. 

"The biggest misconception is the investigation has gone cold. Nothing ever goes cold," Rostraver Police Chief Scott Sokol said. 

Officers were called to a home on Webster Hollow Road in October 2022 for reports of shots being fired. When officers arrived, they said four people, including two juveniles, were in the home. No one was injured.

Police said they found broken glass from a screen door and a bullet hole through the glass of a door. Shell casings were recovered at the scene.

"Our officer did an outstanding job," Sokol said. "One shell casing he located led to this arrest."

While that evidence was sent for testing to the crime lab for the Pennsylvania State Police, Rostraver police said officers worked with the Charleroi Police Department in 2023 to check a license plate reader on the Charleroi-Monessen Bridge to determine a possible vehicle involved in the incident.

According to police paperwork, the vehicle involved was a black Mercedes-Benz, owned by Goins.

"As in all cases, teamwork is essential. There's no boundaries. There's no walls between agencies. If you want to be successful, you have to work with one another," Sokol said.

According to police paperwork, the Department of Justice recovered a firearm from a crime scene in Allegheny County in 2024. Investigators later determined that the gun was used in Rostraver.

"A .40 Glock pistol was recovered in possession of Tre Goins, and the pistol was ballistically matched to the gun used in this case," police said.

That's when investigators served a search warrant at Goins' home for a DNA sample. In February of this year, a scientist confirmed the DNA found on the 2022 shell casings matched the DNA of Goins.

"DNA, it has become such a great tool in criminal investigations that almost all the cases can be tied to DNA at some point," Sokol said.

KDKA-TV also confirmed Goins was sentenced in federal court this week to serve 146 months in a separate case for possession of cocaine and fentanyl and possession of a firearm in a drug trafficking crime.

Goins has not yet been arraigned on the charges connected to the 2022 incident in Rostraver.