Two executed in car in Mantua

In three days, Cotneita Hanchard would have been 65.

Unlike some who dread advancing age, Hanchard reveled in her impending retirement and dreamed of indulging her love of travel and spending time with her doting kin - five children, 17 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

But those dreams were demolished in an explosion of violence early yesterday, when someone gunned down her and a co-worker as the pair sat in a car in the parking lot of a Mantua apartment building.

Investigators suspect the killer first murdered the co-worker, Duane Bell, 41, in a dispute before turning his weapon on Hanchard, whose only offense was to have witnessed the argument and slaying.

It was unclear why the car had been parked outside the apartments, about two miles from Hanchard's home.

"Why they kill her? That's my mom, that's my rock!" her son, Wilfred Wright, wailed. He was reflecting at a makeshift memorial relatives set up in the parking lot on Mantua Avenue near 32nd Street.

Wright said his mother - nicknamed "Mum" by her grandchildren and "Mackey" by friends - came to Philadelphia from Jamaica about 20 years ago in search of a better life.

"She took 17 of us here from Jamaica, and we all lived in one house on Farson [Street near Arch]," said Wright, 43. "It was a little crowded, but we did fine."

She took a job cleaning offices at the Bellevue, at Broad and Walnut streets, 16 years ago, relatives said. She left for work at 4 p.m. and got home after 1 a.m.

The late hour of her commute concerned relatives, who took turns picking her up at her bus stop at 52nd and Walnut and delivering her safely the rest of the four blocks home, Wright said.

Early yesterday, Wright knew something was wrong when Hanchard didn't answer her cell phone.

"We speak to her every night to make sure she make it home all right," said Wright, of West Philadelphia. "[Yesterday morning] we didn't sleep; we just kept calling. In the morning, we were planning to go to the hospital or the police and see if anything happened to her."

Detectives called before Wright made that move.

Hanchard had been shot once in the head shortly after 1 a.m. as she sat in the back of a maroon Lincoln. Bell, who was sitting in the driver's seat, also was shot once in the head. Medics declared both dead at the scene.

Bell, who lived on 59th Street near Thompson in West Philadelphia, had only recently started working as a janitor at the Bellevue, officials said. Both Bell and Hanchard were officially employed by ABM Janitorial Services and were contracted into the Bellevue.

Hotel officials said counselors were on hand today to help Hanchard and Bell's coworkers come to terms with the double tragedy. Bell's relatives could not be reached for comment last night.

The case was eerily similar to another homicide that occurred in the same parking lot just three months ago. In that still-unsolved case, a 24-year-old Powelton Village man was shot once in the neck as he sat inside a silver Lincoln. Derrick Williams' clothes were singed by fire, indicating his killer had tried to burn his body.

Yesterday morning, relatives placed teddy bears, candles and photos of Hanchard in the parking spot where she died, the memorial made more poignant because of its proximity to the still-wet blood mingling with melting snow and road grime nearby.

Relatives said Hanchard spent her last day alive in court, supporting a grandson who had some criminal trouble, and afterward delivered balloons to another grandson who celebrated his 11th birthday Wednesday.

Then she left for work, as usual, at 4 p.m. and "with a smile on her face," grandson Anthony Bogle said.

Through their tears, relatives remembered Hanchard as a devout woman who rarely missed services at the New Testament Church of God at 53rd and Whitby. She was fiercely proud of a son and two grandsons serving in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said.

"My head is spinning right now, it just hurts so much," said grandson Emilio Palmer, 24. "She loved us like we were her kids, not just her grandkids, and she cared about us equally. There's so much I want to say to her that I didn't get to say." *

Staff writer David Gambacorta contributed to this report.