Gang dispute claims two more
A 17-year-old victim, a 19-year-old lifer.
The prosecutor called it a dispute between two groups of neighborhood kids that began in elementary school and just kept going.
On Sept. 7, 2012, it took the life of 17-year-old Paris Talbert as he sat talking to a friend on a bench outside the Finley Recreation Center on East Hortter Street in East Mount Airy.
On Friday, it led to a life prison sentence without parole for his then-19-year-old killer, Saleem Snead, after a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury found Snead guilty of first-degree murder. The verdict carries a mandatory life prison term and Judge J. Scott O'Keefe immediately imposed the sentence.
Assistant District Attorney Kirk Handrich said Snead did not testify in his defense and did not speak before sentencing.
Handrich said Talbert's mother, Heather Heyward, gave a victim impact statement about the loss of her son and told O'Keefe "she only wished somehow the families would have been able to get together to stop this before it occurred."