'Leroy the Handyman' held for trial in murder

"LEROY THE handyman" was held for trial yesterday on murder and related charges in the brutal strangulation, stabbing and beating death of 85-year-old Regina Brunner-Holmes in her East Mount Airy home.

Authorities contend the defendant, Leroy Wilson, 37, committed the murder alone. They believe Brunner-Holmes, a grandmother, allowed him into her home, on Roumfort Road near Crest Park Road, because she knew him.

Wilson had previously done odd jobs at her home and at other homes in the neighborhood.

Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax, who appeared emotional during yesterday's preliminary hearing, said afterward that the way the murder was committed was "way more personal and nasty" than other killings.

"It takes a lot longer to do that," he said of the strangulation. "To have someone's hand on your throat, knowing your life is being sucked out of you, squeezed out of you. I can't imagine the horrors she felt."

At the hearing before Municipal Judge Karen Yvette Simmons, Sax told the judge that the victim, whom he described as 85 "years young" was found in her home Monday, June 29, dressed in a light-blue nightshirt, lying face up on her bedroom floor, blood staining her clothes and splattered around her bedroom.

She was stabbed in her back and neck, Sax said, breathing heavily. She was strangled and suffered injuries to her head.

Three purses in her bedroom appeared ransacked.

There was no sign of forced entry into her home, he said.

The city's chief medical examiner, Sam Gulino, determined she was killed that previous weekend, either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, Sax said.

Sax called to the witness stand Wilson's former girlfriend, Micshell Hoskins, 40, who was arrested on theft charges in the case.

Hoskins, of Stillman Street near Clearfield in North Philly, testified that sometime in the early morning of Sunday, June 28, after she gave her baby daughter her 3 a.m. bottle, Wilson knocked on her door. She was asleep.

She said she has known Wilson for five years; he was her boyfriend for four of those years.

Sax read parts of a July 2 statement she gave to homicide detectives. In it, she told detectives Wilson told her: "I caught a body."

She said she understood that to mean he killed someone. She said she thought he wasn't serious.

Wilson gave her a laptop and dropped Brunner-Holmes' credit card on her bed, she said. She used the laptop to shop on the Toys "R" Us website and rung up $1,600 in purchases with the credit card, she said. She said at the time, she did not know Brunner-Holmes was murdered.

She told detectives that Wilson is a handyman and had told her that he took items from people's homes where he worked.

At some point during Wilson's stay, she said, they watched TV news of Brunner-Holmes' murder. She asked him about it.

"Leroy said to me, 'I didn't f---ing know her and I don't want you asking me s--- about her,' " Hoskins said in her statement. She said Wilson's response scared her, so she went to her mother's house.

Hoskins has been jailed on $100,000 bail. She faces a preliminary hearing today on charges of receiving stolen property in relation to Brunner-Holmes' credit card and laptop. Sax said Hoskins' bail was expected to be lowered following her testimony.

Sax also played six snippets, totaling about five minutes, of a four-hour, 43-minute video statement Wilson gave to Homicide Detectives Nathan Williams and Thorsten Lucke on July 4.

In it, Wilson said a man he knew as "K" was looking for some new homes to steal from, and Wilson said he was familiar with the area of Roumfort Road. Wilson said he took part in robbing Brunner-Holmes because he needed money. He also said a man he identified as "W" was part of the plan.

"I had two people . . . I care about that were in need," he said, referring to Hoskins and to his girlfriend, Jessica, in Norristown.

He said he took responsibility for Brunner-Holmes' death, but did not say he killed her.

"I take full responsibility because it wouldn't have taken place without me," he said.

Defense attorney Earl Kauffman, during cross-examination of Detective Williams, pointed out that nowhere in the video clips played did Wilson admit to actually killing Brunner-Holmes.

Williams agreed. But the detective added: "He said she wouldn't be dead except for him."

The detective said Wilson claimed that "K" or "W" must have killed Brunner-Holmes.

Williams, though, testified that Wilson's claim "isn't consistent with the investigation."

The judge held Wilson for trial on all charges, including murder, robbery, burglary and possession of an instrument of crime.

Sax said after the hearing that Brunner-Holmes "put up a fight" and had defensive wounds.

"She was feisty, she was strong," he said of the artist who worked part-time at the Chestnut Hill Local newspaper.

Brunner-Holmes' two sons, Adam Brunner and Eric Brunner, who were at the hearing, declined comment afterward.

Police had recovered Brunner-Holmes' Toyota Corolla on Hoskins' block. That eventually led to Wilson's arrest on the morning of July 4 at his home in Norristown.