Man held for trial in October fatal shooting, dumping of body

A WEST MOUNT AIRY man who allegedly confessed to fatally shooting another man last year and dumping his body in a grassy lot in Southwest Philadelphia was held for trial yesterday on murder and related offenses.

Dion Jordan, a/k/a Deion Jordan, 35, of McCallum Street near Lincoln Drive, told police in a statement that he shot and killed Dallas Long, 49, of East Mount Airy, on Oct. 17.

Assistant District Attorney Brendan O'Malley said Long was shot in the head and found in a field on Lyons Avenue near 82nd Street.

Jordan, according to his police statement, said that he had been buying pills from Long, and on Oct. 17, he met Long at a 7-Eleven parking lot near Cheltenham Avenue. Long got into Jordan's Dodge Grand Caravan and gave him two Xanax pills and four oxycodone pills, which Jordan took all at once.

Then the two drove around and during the ride, Long said he kept "girls in hotels" as prostitutes and beat them, Jordan said in his statement, read in court by Homicide Detective William Kelhower.

Jordan said he was getting upset that Long kept girls as hookers and abused them, and said he was also getting "woozy from the pills I took."

He said that he then had Long drive the Caravan, and that at one point Long pulled out a gun. That's when, Jordan claimed, he pulled out his gun from a back pocket and shot Long.

He said he then put Long in the back of the Caravan and drove to 82nd Street near Lyons Avenue, in Southwest Philly, and put Long "on the ground."

He said he took Long's phones, his gun and an identification card and then drove to the Falls Bridge near Kelly Drive and dumped Long's gun into the Schuylkill.

Kelhower, under questioning by defense lawyer Susan Ricci, said police found Long's keys in the river, but nothing else.

Municipal Judge James DeLeon held Jordan for trial on charges of murder, abuse of corpse and weapons offenses, but agreed with Ricci that a robbery charge should be dismissed since the items allegedly taken from Long were done so after the alleged shooting, and not during the course of it.

Jordan separately faces a preliminary hearing tomorrow on aggravated assault, kidnapping and robbery charges in connection with an Oct. 19 incident in which he and an accomplice allegedly lured another man into a Dodge Charger, then bound the man with black plastic ties and stole $2,000 in cash from him.

They allegedly ordered the man's friends to bring $5,000 more - threatening that if they didn't get the money, they would kill the victim.