Nursing student moonlighting as pimp pleads guilty in dismemberment

A Center City man who was going to nursing school while working as a pimp pleaded guilty Thursday to third-degree murder in the 2013 death and dismemberment of a john he had set up to be robbed.

With five jurors selected for his trial in Common Pleas Court and two prostitutes prepared to testify against him, Keith "King" Tolbert decided to take a plea deal that will put him in prison for 22 to 44 years.

Tolbert, 35, will be sentenced Friday by Judge J. Scott O'Keefe. His attorney, Mary T. Maran, said Tolbert wants to express his remorse to the family of Francis Zarzycki, 40, and tell authorities where he dumped the victim's missing body parts.

Zarzycki's torso, wrapped in plastic bags, was discovered by a boater on Sept. 3, 2013, floating in the Schuylkill off Grays Ferry Avenue. The head and limbs have not been found.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Zarallo said Tolbert pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, abuse of corpse, and conspiracy involving the two prostitutes he had arranged for Zarzycki to meet at his second-floor apartment on South 11th Street near Locust Street.

The women, Stephanie Foulke, 23, and Angel Weston, 22, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and robbery, and await sentencing.

Foulke testified at a preliminary hearing in 2013 that Tolbert had asked her to come to his apartment on Aug. 26 of that year because Zarzycki, a Northeast Philadelphia man and repeat customer, would be there.

But when she arrived, Foulke said, Tolbert told her the assignation was about robbery, not sex, because Zarzycki carried a lot of drugs and cash.

When Zarzycki arrived, Tolbert's plan for the women to distract him while he sucker-punched him quickly went awry.

Zarzycki started screaming and punching back, fell over a table, and hit the floor face down. Foulke said Tolbert was sitting on Zarzycki's back as she and Weston tried to tie him up, but he was screaming so loudly that she grabbed Tolbert's Taser and shocked him twice to quiet him.

Zarzycki stopped breathing and, according to Foulke, Tolbert grabbed his stethoscope and began trying to revive the man.

Foulke testified that she and Weston left the apartment by the fire escape. She said Tolbert told her later that he had cut off the victim's head and limbs and "thrown him in the river."

Zarallo said the medical examiner could not say how Zarzycki died - heart attack, asphyxiation or some other cause - because of the condition of the body.