Cops making 'signficant progress' in probe of E. Mt. Airy slaying

HOMICIDE DETECTIVES are questioning several people and making "significant progress" in their probe into the barbaric murder of an 85-year-old woman, authorities said yesterday.

Regina Brunner Holmes was found brutalized, with several stab wounds and her throat slit, Monday inside her home on Roumfort Road near Ardleigh Street in East Mount Airy.

It remained unclear last night what prompted the horrific attack.

In the days since the grisly discovery, investigators have scoured the city for leads. They took a big step yesterday, when they brought in "several people" for questioning, Capt. James Clark, head of the Homicide Unit, said.

A police source said that group included a woman who lives on Bouvier Street near 66th Avenue in West Oak Lane, whose home Crime Scene Investigators served a search warrant on yesterday afternoon.

During their search, the officers recovered a laptop and safe that belong to Holmes, the source said.

Clark hesitated to call the individuals being questioned persons of interest in the case, saying it's too early in the process to make that call.

Earlier in the week, police recovered Holmes' Toyota Corolla abandoned on Stillman Street near Clearfield in North Philadelphia after a resident flagged down two patrol officers. She recognized the vehicle, stolen during the fatal attack, from its description in Tuesday's Daily News.

Detectives also discovered that Holmes' ATM card had been used in Northeast Philadelphia on Monday.

Last night, Holmes' longtime neighbors took some solace in the brief update from police.

Leon King, a former commissioner of prisons and recent judicial candidate who lives across the street from Holmes, was coming home at "the end of a terrible week" last night.

"If they're caught, it wouldn't make up for the fact that this happened," he said.

At a vigil Tuesday, King said Holmes, a grandmother, knew everybody on their close-knit block. She was an avid artist, and once gifted him and his partner with a handmade Aztec-style painting.

"But still, that's good news. It seems like they're getting closer . . . But now I want to know who these people are," King said.

"I want to find out what's wrong with them. They break in, they take her things . . . I just can't believe someone would do something like that."