7 ordered to stand trial in Piazza slayings

By KITTY CAPARELLA
Philadelphia Daily News

caparek@phillynews.com 215-854-5880

With a gun pointed at her head, party planner Rian Thal pleaded: "Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me! I'll give you everything you want."

Thal was standing outside apartment No. 717 with keys in her hand, ready to open the door to where four kilos of cocaine were hidden in a closet. Police later found $111,000 in a closet, a shoe box and a black plastic bag.

Drug associate Timothy Gilmore, 41, was behind Thal, 34, boxed in by two other gunmen who intended to rob them of drugs and money in the trendy Piazza at Schmidts, an upscale retail and apartment complex in Northern Liberties.

That was the scene shortly before Thal and Gilmore were killed about 5:45 p.m. on June 27. The scene was described in testimony and in police statements from four of the seven defendants that were read into record at a preliminary hearing yesterday before Municipal Judge David C. Shuter.

Katoya Jones, 25, and Robert Keith, 27, waived their preliminary hearings. The judge held all seven defendants for trial on murder or related charges. They are in jail awaiting an Oct. 15 arraignment.

Jones, a star witness who agreed to plead guilty to two counts of murder, testified that she opened her apartment lobby door twice for admitted triggerman Donnell Murchison in exchange for a portion of the robbery money. She said she agreed to testify against her onetime friend, the alleged mastermind of the plot, Will "Pooh" Hook, 40, after a homicide detective showed her photos of Thal's murder.

"I couldn't believe she was dead over something I was involved in," she testified.

Hook was arrested under his alias Keith Epps.

Murchison, 33, of West Oak Lane, gave police a statement after the possibility of a death sentence was waived and a secure place was found for his family.

Murchison said Gilmore had tried to grab the "young boy's gun," referring to defendant Antonio Wright. And that's when the scene turned deadly.

Thal was fatally shot in the right side of the head, leaving soot from the gunshot deep in her brain. The bullet exited on right side of her neck, the medical examiner found.

Wright, 28, of Elkins Park, said in his statement to police that Gilmore had "pushed my gun up toward his own head and got past me, and I shot at him three or four times."

Murchison said Wright shot Gilmore in the back and identified Edward Daniels, 42, of North Philadelphia, as holding a gun at Thal's head.

After the shooting began, Murchison said Daniels and Wright ran past him with Wright firing once more at Gilmore lying on the floor near the elevator.

Surveillance videotape shows Wright and Daniels running into a seventh-floor broom closet, coming out and running down a nearby stairwell.

"I stepped over the guy from Detroit, fired [at his head], missed, and fired again," said Murchison, who was using a 9mm handgun given to him by ex-con Caesar Holloway, 32, who has not been charged in the case but was indicted by the feds three weeks ago as a convicted felon with a firearm.

Gilmore was riddled with 11 gunshot wounds, reported a deputy medical examiner.

Meantime, outside the Piazza, Hook waited in a white getaway van, said Murchison, who said he got in the van and stashed his gun inside.

Murchison said Hook, a "kid from the neighborhood," first told him he had a "sweet beat" - a robbery - and that "out-of-town boys had coke," according to his statement.

Murchison contended that he had asked Hook about the "white chick," referring to Thal, and Hook replied: " 'She is down with it.' All I have to do is break her off" - not harm her. Thal's alleged cooperation in the plot has not been corroborated, said Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber.

Jones, the only defendant to testify, said that Hook, a friend for 10 years whose number was programmed in her cell phone, told her that $500,000 was in one of the apartments where she lived and "he needed to get inside."

Jones said she had given him her keys to the apartment building, but Hook and [Robert Keith] "went to the wrong apartment."

They left, and later that afternoon, Murchison, Wright and Daniels returned to ambush Thal and Gilmore.

Hook and Jones "never discussed a price" for her role in what she believed would be a burglary, "but I wanted $50,000-$60,000," she said.

Hook's attorney, Christopher Warren, tried to shake Jones' testimony, citing that she had been sleepless in the homicide unit for two days before confessing.

Later, Lt. Philip Riehl said Jones agreed to cooperate on the first day, and on the second day, awaited approval of her charges and helped detectives with videotapes while they looked for a safe place for her to be held in custody.

One defendant, Langdon Scott, 25, told police that Holloway, the ex-con, gave him a ride to the Piazza to buy cocaine but that he suddenly found himself in the middle of a robbery. Scott said he agreed to participate at first, then backed out.

Scott's attorney, Gregory Pagano, asked that charges be dropped against his client for renouncing the plot, but the judge disagreed.

In a related case, Tamir Jones was held on obstruction and related charges for allegedly helping Murchison while on the lam in the Northeast, where a deputy U.S. marshal was injured during surveillance.

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