Stray bullet cuts down young mother-to-be on Frankford street, leaves newborn clinging to life

EXACTLY A MONTH from today, 26-year-old Megan Doto was due to give birth. A baby boy, the petite, dark-haired mother-to-be gushed to friends and her neighbors in Frankford.

She'd name the baby Carmine, she wrote on Facebook, proudly posting photos of her round belly.

Yesterday, as Doto sat outside on her block of Adams Avenue near Griscom Street, soaking in a late-summer day under crystal-blue skies just before noon, that dream of raising baby Carmine was violently torn from the young mother.

Police said that a bullet fired a block away and meant for someone else hit Doto in the face.

Doto, identified by neighbors, was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital at 12:36 p.m. Doctors performed an emergency C-section and delivered the baby, who police said remained in critical condition last night.

Based on the dozen or so spent bullet casings that littered Griscom Street near Womrath, about a block from where Doto was sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk watching a neighbor's 7-year-old daughter, police Capt. Stephen Murianka said, at least one gunman was firing ruthlessly down the sloped block toward Adams Avenue.

Murianka said police think the gunfire's intended target might have been a man who lived in the same apartment house as Doto - three doors down from where she was sitting - who was also outside at the time. That man, police said, along with Doto's boyfriend and the mother of the little girl Doto was watching when she was shot, were all taken to the Homicide Unit to speak with detectives in the wake of the shooting.

Police reported no arrests or suspect identifications last night.

The 7-year-old girl who was with Doto during the shooting was not wounded.

Neighbors from the tight-knit blocks near Doto's apartment said yesterday that she was a fixture outside the stucco rowhouses that line Adams Avenue like crooked teeth, always sitting outside her house sipping coffee and reading a book.

But she was quick to pause from the pages and talk about her unborn baby.

"She was so excited for the baby to be here. She couldn't wait," one neighbor, who identified herself only as Keri-Ann, said.

Another neighbor, Ray, said he had just recently started chatting with Doto when he'd see her as he'd walk by on his way to work.

"I'm sad, man," said Ray, adding that he doesn't bring his own 6-year-old daughter around the neighborhood much. "I see her every morning . . . she was very pleasant, but she looked sad."

Ray and Keri-Ann agreed that particular stretch of Adams, along the southern edge of the neighborhood not far from the rumble of the El and the banks of Frankford Creek, is somewhat of an oasis from the drugs and violence that plague the rest of Frankford's streets. It's usually peaceful but for the sound of playing children, they said.

"There are so many kids," Ray said, as a pair of young boys played tag at the other end of the yellow crime-scene tape. "Nobody does anything on this block, ever."

Keri-Ann added, "The drama is all on Griscom," referring to the street where police said the gunfire erupted.

Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said that span of Griscom is known as "Crack Street" among some, named for the seemingly constant presence of drug dealers on the corners.

"I can't believe she died," the neighbor said. "I just saw her."

Police reported no arrests last night in the young mother's shooting, but said they were looking for a white car, possibly a Chevy Impala or Ford Crown Victoria, seen leaving the area just after the gunfire.

The thought that the target of such a brazen, broad-daylight act of violence is still walking the street made residents uneasy.

Keri-Ann said she, too, sent her four kids to live far from the now-dangerous streets where she grew up - with a relative across the city.

"It's just a beautiful life gone," she said. "Who were they trying to hit? [That person] is still out there."