Tow-truck driver ran over rival, witness says

Though the slaying happened in the middle of the night, the surveillance video clearly captured a large tow truck repeatedly running over - then backing over - a man lying in a pub parking lot at Frankford and Lehigh avenues.

The man was Ray Santiago, 30, of Gillespie Street near Unruh Avenue, who worked as a tow truck driver for Siani's Towing. He was pronounced dead at 3:15 a.m. Sept. 26, 2010.

Accused of murder and related charges was Glen McDaniel, 27, of Aramingo Avenue near Somerset Street, who was a driver for a rival company, Straight Up Towing. His trial began Tuesday.

Public defender Geoffrey Kilroy said in his opening statement that McDaniel did not have a "malicious intent to kill." But he'd been drinking all day at a family cookout and then at a bar, and was eventually called to help defuse a dispute between drivers from the two companies, Kilroy said.

By that point, McDaniel was a drunk man "trying to get a large tow truck out of a small lot," Kilroy said.

He told Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart - who is hearing the trial without a jury - that his client hit the victim by accident and should only be convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Assistant District Attorney James Berardinelli countered in his opening statement that McDaniel not only brutally murdered the victim after losing a fistfight, but he fled the scene and called 911 claiming to be a victim. During the vehicular stampede, the front wheels on McDaniel's Ford truck temporarily locked up due to the victim's body being entangled, Berardinelli said.

The trouble started in a gas station parking lot across from O'Reilly's Pub. The defendant and co-workers argued with the victim and one of his co-workers over which company's driver should get the right to park near the intersection of Frankford and Lehigh, according to prosecution witness Jonathan Marrero, who drove for Siani's Towing.

Marrero, 24, said he told co-worker Santiago to drop it and leave, but instead the victim drove his tow truck across the street to O'Reilly's, and McDaniel followed in his truck.

Both men got out and started to fistfight before McDaniel got back in his truck, Marrero said.

"I seen a tow truck run over him several times," he said, and identified McDaniel as the driver.

Santiago died at Temple University Hospital of multiple-blunt impact injuries to the brain, ribs, lungs and elsewhere, according to a report from the Medical Examiner's Office.

Contact Mensah M. Dean at 215-568-8278 or deanm@phillynews.com