Not everyone felt the holiday spirit apparently. A heartwrenching story of a woman who was allegedly killed by her boyfriend. As reported by Daily News staffer William Bender:
- As the early birds on Genesee Drive were preparing to open their Christmas presents yesterday morning, homicide investigators were setting up a crime scene at the end of the block, where police say Helen Wollaver received a deadly gift from her live-in boyfriend – a butcher knife in the stomach. "We believe he just snapped," Homicide Sgt. Bob Wilkins said of the 47-year-old man who was in custody last night but hadn’t yet been charged. "There appeared to be a struggle inside."
Police responded at about 7:15 a.m. to the row home on the 3700 block of Genesee Drive, where Wollaver, 43, a Kensington native, had been stabbed once in the abdomen with a kitchen knife. She was pronounced dead at the scene. "All I know is that he stabbed her," said Wollaver’s brother, Jim. "The scumbag should die." Wollaver didn’t have a restraining order against her boyfriend and police haven’t previously been called to the house, according to Wilkins, but Jim Wollaver said he had a violent streak.
"She had it rough for a while, then she just started getting things together," Jim Wollaver said of his sister, who worked at the Franklin Mills Mall. "She moved to a new house and got a new job and all – and then this happens."
"That’s a Merry Christmas, huh? Why today?" neighbor Bob Capriotti asked.
Capriotti, like the rest of the block’s residents, was stunned to hear that a homicide had occurred in his relatively safe section of Northeast Philadelphia. "I’ve lived here 27 years and nothing like this has ever happened," said Jenn Clementson, whose house is across the street from Wollaver’s. "It’s crazy." Capriotti said that the couple had recently moved into the house and that few on the block knew them by name. He hadn’t noticed any "warning sings" that there relationship had gone sour.
"But you never know what’s happening internally with families," he said.
Clementson said the neighborhood, located across the street from the Franklin Mills Mall, is safe, especially because several cops live on the street. "I don’t understand why anyone would do that. It’s sad that it happened today, to see that stuff on Christmas morning," she said. "People just snap." By early afternoon, police had left the scene, and residents retreated to their homes. A Santa Claus decoration hanging in Wollaver’s window wished passerby a Merry Christmas.
- In a horrible holiday hit and run, a 15-year-old is in police custody and a 73-year-old man is dead after a fatal hit and run Wednesday night. The youth turned himself into police yesterday. No charges have been filed. The unlicensed teen was driving at the intersection of M Street near Erie Avenue when he struck William Wrigley, of Frankford Avenue near Sedgely, and sped off down Luzerne Street. He was driving his parents' SUV at the time. Wrigley was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital a short time after the incident. Police have so far ruled out drugs and alcohol in relation to the driver. Stay tuned for more on this story.
Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.
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Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.
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Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.
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Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.
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