EVERY AFTERNOON about 4, husky 6-foot-3 Will "Pooh" Hook Jr. would show up in a bulletproof vest, his henchmen surrounding him, on a Strawberry Mansion corner.
As far as the eye could see from that corner of Susquehanna Avenue and Corlies Street spreads the drug territory under his domain, say neighbors and law-enforcement sources.
"Every day, he stands outside his mom's house, always with four or five guys around him, like he's John Gotti or something," said a neighbor, recalling Hook's onetime glory days as a big-time drug dealer.
That was after he finished a five-to-10-year drug sentence in state prison on May 13, 2006, and before his arrest in July.
Today, Hook, 40, and six co-defendants face a preliminary hearing in a high-profile double-murder in Northern Liberties.
Police say Hook masterminded a drug robbery that was botched and that turned into a frightening case of homicide about 5:30 p.m. on June 27, as new tenants moved into loft-style apartments at the upscale Piazza at Schmidts, a retail-and-apartment complex that features a theater-size screen and outdoor dining in the courtyard.
Hook's co-defendants are charged with fatally shooting Rian Thal, 34, and drug associate Timothy Gilmore, 41, outside Thal's seventh-floor apartment, where police later found four kilos of cocaine and $111,000.
Through his attorney, Hook, of Susquehanna Avenue near Corlies Street, said that sources for this story are either "seriously misinformed or blatantly lying."
"If any of this information was reliable, my client would have been arrested and convicted a long time ago," said the lawyer, Chris Warren. "As for police sources, this is a smear campaign, pure and simple."
Court records show that Hook said he was self-employed, working full time in real estate for two years, making $400 every two weeks, and living at his mother's house.
Now he's jailed - under the alias of Keith Epps - at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on State Road.
Some neighbors still call him "Pooh-Pooh," his childhood name, but police have arrested him under the aliases Keith Epps, James Wilson and Willie Hook.
According to a source close to the drug world and law-enforcement sources, Hook had about 15 drug associates working for him and first made a name for himself in North Philadelphia's underworld.
He took on North Philly's major drug dealer - and his onetime mentor - Jack "Fussy" Jarmon, now 35, who sources said grew up on the same block as Hook, Cleveland Street between Dauphin and York.
As often happens in the drug business, the two had a falling out over money, according to sources. Thus began a years-long drug war in the 1990s.
"They were shooting up Cleveland Street like it was the OK Corral," said one neighbor.
Hook was drawn to his younger rival's money, drugs and persona, but most of all to his turf, according to sources.
Jarmon didn't look like a typical drug dealer, said an associate. At 6 feet 4, he was quiet, extremely thin, neat, clean-shaven and played amateur basketball, usually wearing sports attire off the court.
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