Neighbor: Child-advocacy worker’s shooter ‘deserves electric chair’

DECADES AGO - before houses sprung up between his block of 12th Street and Broad Street - Wes Hatton used the open space in his North Philadelphia neighborhood to teach his daughter and her friend Kim Jones how to ride bikes.

Hatton, who has lived on 12th Street near Jefferson for 55 years, knew Jones all her life. He can't grasp the fact that someone killed her Tuesday morning, firing a single bullet into the back of her skull just steps from Hatton's and Jones' side-by-side rowhouses.

"I raised up [my kids] around this girl. It's more like one of your daughters," Hatton said of Jones, 56, as he sat in his living room Wednesday. "I can't believe she's gone. For what reason? Who hated her that bad?"

Someone did. Investigators have said Jones was targeted and executed by someone who knew her daily routine and laid in wait near her bus stop at 12th and Jefferson streets.

"Oh boy, I would like to see him. To do that to anybody, just walk up on them and shoot them in the head, then walk away," Hatton said, shaking his head. "He deserves the electric chair."

Wednesday, more than 24 hours after the cold-blooded gunman crept up behind Jones as she waited at the corner to catch the Route 23 bus to her job as a program director at Turning Points for Children in Center City, police still had no solid leads in Jones' killing.

They continued to review surveillance footage taken in the area around 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, the time they believe Jones was ambushed as she stood at the bus stop alone, listening to gospel music in the cold morning air.

Hatton said Wednesday that the tight-knit neighborhood just south of Temple University - still mostly owner-occupied homes insulated from much of the violence plaguing the rest of North Philly - was in shock at Jones' savage killing.

"Everybody's surprised. The whole neighborhood knows Kim. Everybody knows her," Hatton said. "I heard a lady got shot on the corner, but I never thought it was Kim."

He'd approached the crime scene Tuesday morning when he heard the commotion outside, Hatton recalled, and saw the blood running down the pavement into a curbside drain. A policeman at the scene told him the name of the victim, and he was stunned, he said.

"The police said, 'It's Kim Jones.' I said, 'That's my neighbor.' I didn't believe it," he said.

Hatton said talk has circulated that a witness saw Jones' shooter - described as a heavy-set black man who wore all black and carried a black duffel bag - walking west on Jefferson toward Broad after he shot her.

"He walked away. He didn't run," Hatton said incredulously. "Who would know she'd be on that corner?"

Outside Jones' porch-fronted rowhouse - in which she grew up and to which she moved back about six years ago - the older of her two sons, Andre Jourden, reflected quietly on her life.

He said that his mother, who had a master's degree in business administration, pursued her job at the child-advocacy organization about a decade ago as a second career.

"She was so proud to be doing that," said Jourden, 33, who flew to Philadelphia from Florida on Wednesday morning. "Her true passion was helping kids and families."

Jourden said his mother had just married her longtime partner in December at the Church of the Advocate, at 18th and Diamond streets.

Both the son and Hatton said Jones was well-loved and had no enemies, and both expressed hope that police would catch her shooter quickly and bring him to justice.

"You really took a great person from this earth," Jourden said. "An amazing person who would do anything for anyone. I know that's cliche, but that's who she was."

Tipsters should call detectives at 215-686-3334 or text a tip to PPD TIP (773847).

Blog: PhillyConfidential.com