'She had a big hole in her chest'

THE SCREAMS drew Santee Weddington to his bedroom window, but nothing could have prepared him for the scene that was playing out on the streets below.

A driverless Chevrolet Impala rolled across the intersection of 20th Street and Nedro Avenue shortly after midnight yesterday, then came to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the mustard-yellow walls of Jhonny's Food Market.

Weddington said he stared in disbelief at the passenger seat, which held the limp, bullet-riddled body of Jasmine Williams, who was eight months' pregnant.

His eyes drifted from the car to a shape on the ground. It was a 26-year-old man, who cried out, "Help! Help!" as he writhed in pain from a bullet that had ripped into his thigh.

"Some neighbors ran over to help the girl," Weddington said as he waved his arms through the air, mimicking the commotion.

"She had a big hole in her chest, and she was bleeding from the neck."

Williams, 25, who police said had been shot in the head, arms and legs, was pronounced dead at Albert Einstein Medical Center at 1:03 a.m., police said.

Doctors delivered her baby girl, but the infant did not survive.

The wounded man, who according to news reports was engaged to Williams, was admitted to Einstein in critical condition.

Homicide Capt. James Clark said investigators believe that both victims were the intended targets.

The shooting appears to be linked to the slaying of a 42-year-old man who was gunned down Tuesday afternoon in a shopping center at Broad Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, Clark said.

Williams' family could not be reached for comment.

The early-morning double shooting left the surrounding Germantown community shaken.

Malikah Hill said she heard the gunshots that rang out in the night, then had to explain to her 10-year-old son that a homicide had unfolded in front of the corner store that he visits every day on his way home from nearby Joseph Pennell Elementary School.

A school official called her yesterday morning to say that her son was too scared to come home.

"I walked there, and I told him that, unfortunately, there's going to be violence and drugs no matter where you go," Hill said.

"But I also told him that I will be here to pick him up after school."

Weddington, whose house is across from the corner store, pointed to spots on the pavement where blood had been washed away - and to corners where some crimson streaks remained.

A small video camera perched on a pole across the street from the store could have captured the crime, Weddington said, but it doesn't work.

Hill lamented the recent spate of grim crimes that have made headlines - an innocent 15-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet in front of Einstein earlier this week, and another pregnant mother was killed by reckless gunfire in Frankford last week.

"I want to get out of this city," she said. "What's this world coming to?"