Archive: February, 2012
William Bender
Last week, the Bernie Robbins Fine Jewelry store in Radnor was targeted by a crew of smash-and-grab bandits who made off with an unspecified amount of jewelry. The store quickly offered a $10,000 reward to shake loose tips about the thieves.
Take a trip down Lancaster Avenue into West Philadelphia and you’ll end up at the scene of two December shootings with four victims – including Ronald Washington, 69, who was struck in the head while riding a motorized scooter, and James Hollis, 81, who was shot in the back and arm while walking from the bus stop.
“We have two elderly gentlemen who spent their lives in the neighborhood, only to be gunned down by idiots carrying out a feud,” Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives told the Inquirer’s Mike Newell last month.
Stephanie Farr
The tale of the body found in Darby Creek is a bit sadder than I could get in to with the brief I wrote for today's Daily News.
The body, that of a man in his 40s, was found face down and fully clothed in the creek along Victory Avenue in Upper Darby around 2 p.m. yesterday.
He's believed to be a homeless man who made his living walking through Cobb's Creek Golf Club picking up unwanted stray golf balls and selling them, said Upper Darby Superintendent Michael Chitwood.
Stephanie Farr
Instead of bail money, a Glenolden man brought a gun to the Upper Darby police station early Saturday morning and demanded the release of his girlfriend, who'd been arrested earlier in the night for drunk and disorderly conduct, police said.
Kenneth Stewart, 22, who was high as a kite himself, according to police, must have confused chivalry with stupidity. Instead of busting his lady out of the clinker, he wound up in a cell himself and remains there today on attempted murder charges and $250,000 bail, said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.
Stewart's older girlfriend, Denise Pepe, 27, was arrested at the Playhouse Lanes on Garrett Road late Friday night for being drunk and disorderly and was taken in to custody, Chitwood said. Around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, Stewart, who appeared intoxicated, showed up at the police station on West Chester Pike demanding her release, Chitwood said.
Stephanie Farr
A husband and wife of Indian descent may have entered in to a death pact in Upper Darby yesterday because one of their daughters ran off with a Pakistani man, according to investigators.
Around 1 p.m. Wednesday, a 24-year-old man found his mother, Jaswinder Kaur, 47, and his father, Gurinder Singh, 52, unconscious in bed together with scarves tied tightly around their necks, said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. Kaur was pronounced dead on the scene but Singh was transported to an area hospital where he regained consciousness, police said.
Singh told police that the couple had entered in to a suicide pact and that his wife took her own life, but police are investigating him as the "prime suspect" in Kaur's death, though he has not yet been charged with her murder, Chitwood said.
Stephanie Farr
John Dillard's last ride as a cabbie was brutal.
The Germantown Taxi driver was found in the back seat of his his parked cab on Lamokin Street in Chester on June 23 wrapped in black, plastic trash bags, according to police. He'd been stabbed in the neck and strangled.
Today, Chester officials announced an arrest in Dillard's slaying and in a separate 2010 killing.
"Today is a good day," said Chester Mayor John Linder.
In Dillard's case, the day after he was found his fiance, Shawna Jordan, called police to report him missing, according to court documents. She said she'd last seen him when he went with her to Philadelphia Traffic Court for a hearing.
William Bender
Congressman Bob Brady and other elected officials will be in Chester tomorrow to announce the site acquisition for a "hybrid" grocery store to be run by Philabundance, the nonprofit that supplies free food to people in need. And a grocery store is exactly what Chester needs, with the last supermarket having rolled out of the impoverished Delaware County city in 2001.
“We’re looking at both selling food and giving it away free to people who need it," said George Matysik, Philabundance's deputy director of policy and planning.
The nonprofit has so far rounded up $2.2 million for the $4.5 million project. That includes state and federal funding and $800,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. You can donate here. A construction date hasn't been set. The store will be located at 9th and Booth streets.
Stephanie Farr
A taxi driver found his mother dead and his father unconscious in bed at their home behind the Upper Darby police station this afternoon, said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.
Detectives are still on scene combing for clues in what Chitwood labeled a "criminal death investigation" at the house on Winfield Avenue near West Chester Pike.
He said a taxi driver in his 20s received a gargled call on his cell phone from his father around 1 p.m. today, asking the young man to come home. When the man arrived, he found his mother, who was in her 40s, dead in bed. His father, who is in his 50s, was next to her breathing but unconscious, police said. Both were fully clothed.
Stephanie Farr
A Drexel Hill medical technician's drinking and drug problem were one and the same, according to Upper Darby police, who arrested the man for allegedly stealing morphine and fentanyl syringes from his employer that he then emptied and drank as pain-killer cocktails.
Ronald Ferrell, 35, began working for STAT Medical Transport of Drexel Hill in September 2011, according to police, and it took his employer just three months to notice that Ferrell's patients seemed to be going through morphine and fentanyl like Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo on a bad day in Las Vegas.
Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said before Ferrell began his employment with STAT, the company had gone through just two morphine syringes and four fentanyl syringes in seven months. However, in the three months after Ferrell was hired, they went through 28 morphine syringes and 26 fentanyl syringes, Chitwood said.
The company started its own internal investigation and conducted random drug tests on its employees, according to police. Ferrell turned up hot for morphine and STAT Medical Transport contacted Upper Darby police, who brought Ferrell in for questioning, Chitwood said.
During police interviews, Ferrell admitted to taking the syringes on at least 12 or 15 occasions, emptying them and then drinking the contents, Chitwood said. He was doing this on top of taking Percocet and Dilaudid, two prescription pain killers, according to police.
William Bender
Pennsylvania State Police say a 74-year-old Newtown Square man got so drunk at Sang Kee Noodle Bowl in Edgmont that he "fell from a bar stool ... injuring his head," thus generating a bad noodle-pun headline.
When medics arrived to help, cops say, John Reid was "extremely intoxicated and combative."
"According to the EMT and paramedic, Reid tried hitting them several times," Trooper Matthew Rose wrote in the incident report.
Stephanie Farr
A young woman is dead and three other people remain in critical condition following a domestic shooting at a Chester take-out restaurant early this morning, according to police.
Around 3 a.m., cops were called to J & S Seafood at the intersection of 9th and Kerlin streets for multiple gunshot victims. Upon arrival, police found a 22-year-old woman dead in the parking lot next to a vehicle with bullet holes in it.
A second woman in her 20s and a 24-year-old man were also found with multiple gunshot wounds to their torsos. Both were transported to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where they remain in critical condition, according to Police Commissioner Joseph Bail Jr.
