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Was man slain in NE Philly a lover or an intruder?

Police are investigating the shooting death of Marc Carrion inside an apartment building late Monday night.

Police examine a fence just below a second floor window at the Holmes Circle Apartments on Axe Factory Road near Welsh Road in Northeast Philadelphia on Tuesday Sept. 16, 2014, after a man who police said may be an intruder was shot one time in the head by a resident.
Police examine a fence just below a second floor window at the Holmes Circle Apartments on Axe Factory Road near Welsh Road in Northeast Philadelphia on Tuesday Sept. 16, 2014, after a man who police said may be an intruder was shot one time in the head by a resident.Read moreJoseph Kaczmarek

GLORIA MOYETT doesn’t understand why her son had to die.

"I worked hard my whole life to move my family to a nice and quiet neighborhood, and he gets killed around the corner from my front door," she said last night.

Early yesterday morning, her son Marc Carrion, 32, died at Aria Health Torresdale hospital. He had clung to life for two hours after he was shot in the head inside the Holme Circle Apartments, about a block from Moyett's house in a quiet Northeast Philly neighborhood.

That much, the end result, was clear to police. What remained uncertain was why the man holding the gun - whom police sources identified as Charles Jordan, 41 - had fired at Carrion.

Also unclear was why Carrion had spent his last night alive inside the bedroom of Jordan's 20-year-old daughter.

Homicide Unit detectives spent the better part of yesterday interviewing Jordan, who sources say surrendered his licensed revolver to police and cooperated with the investigation.

They also spoke with Jordan's daughter Brenda, trying to piece together the moments leading up to that fatal gunshot, according to sources.

Officers were called to Holme Circle, on Axe Factory Road near Stamford Street, at 11:30 p.m. Monday, responding to a report of someone shot inside, according to police.

Inside, they found Carrion shot once in the head inside the Jordans' second-floor apartment, and took him to Aria Torresdale.

Preliminary information from that crime scene showed that Jordan had found Carrion crouched in a corner in his daughter's room, and had threatened him, thinking he was an intruder, according to police sources.

A struggle ensued, and Carrion was shot.

Jordan remained at the house and called 9-1-1, later telling responding officers that Carrion had climbed into his daughter's bedroom through a window.

But as investigators continued to probe the shooting, they uncovered a divergent theory: that Carrion was romantically involved with Brenda, and that she had invited him into her bedroom.

Yesterday, as the midday sun waned on Axe Factory Road, one neighbor recounted a tale that supported that theory:

While helping to renovate his brother's house across the street from the apartment complex, he heard muffled voices arguing. Then, a single gunshot rang out in the night.

"I heard a girl screaming, 'No, Daddy, no!' " said the man, who declined to give his name.

She then said, " 'Why did you do that? He was my best friend,' " he added, before "everything got quiet."

About 15 minutes later, the police showed up, he said.

Meanwhile, inside a Holme Circle apartment across the hall from the Jordans', Carzeno Khaleel slept through the chaos.

The 26-year-old said yesterday that he had learned of the shooting only after seeing a news report. He's lived across the hall from the Jordans for about a year, but said he doesn't know them, which isn't unusual for residents in Holme Circle.

To hear other residents - for example, Khaleel's neighbor Norman Wilson - tell it, people keep to themselves inside the complex's halls.

"It's a quiet place," Wilson said. "People go to work or school, and that's it."

Wilson came home yesterday afternoon from a trip to New York, and, like Khaleel, had no idea what had transpired feet from his doorstep until someone filled him in.

But nobody had to fill Gloria Moyett in - she knew the full story right away.

And she has major problems with it.

"He's a stranger in your house, and you just shoot him in the head?" she said. "He's with your daughter, she's not screaming, and you shoot him just because you don't know him?

"This doesn't add up to me."

Moyett said her son had worked hard to get his life back on track after some problems in his youth. Court records show that he pleaded guilty to drug charges in 2008.

He recently landed a job in the food court at the King of Prussia Mall, she said, and was saving his money.

She said that her son, who had three sons from a previous relationship, had been invited into the Jordans' apartment by Brenda.

Carrion's friends told her that he had recently met the 20-year-old, and had given her a ride home that night from her job at a nearby 7-Eleven.

Regardless of how her son ended up inside that apartment Monday night, Moyett wants to know why he had to die there.

"I'm still trying to rationalize how a man could shoot someone in the head if he thought he was a threat; why not let him run out the door?" she said.

"Shooting to kill did not have to be an option here."

- Staff writer Regina Medina

contributed to this report