Under the skullcap and above the mask, it was a Homewood man's eyes that two prosecution witnesses said they could identify as he gunned down a 15-year-old boy in the drive-through of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

That wasn't enough for an Allegheny County jury, which took less than an hour yesterday to find 20-year-old Romeo Price not guilty of the homicide of Ernest Tolliver. The trial lasted two days before Common Pleas Judge Kathleen A. Durkin.

Ernest had been sitting in the front passenger's seat of his mother's car Jan. 29, 2008, when a hooded gunman approached on the rainy night. Ernest was shot twice in the neck and once in the arm.

A family member who was in the car with Ernest -- who prosecutors asked not be identified -- didn't recognize the shooter. But a couple months later Mr. Price was identified as a person of interest in the April 2008 shooting of Kholen Germany, a 12-year-old Wilkinsburg boy, and a photo of him was distributed to the news media.

The relative spotted Mr. Price on television and said that was the man who shot Ernest.

Mr. Price was not charged in Kholen's killing.

The second prosecution witness was Clifford Wilson, who was at the Homewood KFC and said he knew Mr. Price from the neighborhood. But he did not come forward quickly and had a lengthy criminal record.

In his closing argument, Mr. Price's attorney, William H. Difenderfer, stressed that because the gunman's face was almost entirely obscured, and considering the weather, the identifications were suspect.

"It's almost like, 'He did it because we're saying he did it,' " Mr. Difenderfer said. "That's not the way this country works."