Judge acquits N.E. Phila. man in shooting in daughter's room
A Northeast Philadelphia man who said he fatally shot his troubled daughter's boyfriend, believing he was an intruder, was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter Monday by a Philadelphia judge.
A Northeast Philadelphia man who said he fatally shot his troubled daughter's boyfriend, believing he was an intruder, was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter Monday by a Philadelphia judge.
The acquittal of Charles Jordan by Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi touched off an explosion of emotion in a courtroom packed with more than 70 supporters of Jordan and the man he shot, Marc Carrion.
"Murderer," said Carrion's mother, Gloria Moyett, before she and other friends and relatives were shouted into silence by sheriff's deputies.
Deputies then escorted Jordan, 42, and his supporters from the courtroom while Carrion's family and friends were told to remain seated. When Carrion's group was dismissed, it moved down the hall trying to catch up with Jordan, only to engage in a loud argument with deputies.
DeFino-Nastasi, who heard the nonjury trial, listened to a morning of witnesses, as well as a riveting and grim five-minute 911 audio recording of the confrontation between Jordan and Carrion.
"Don't you move! I will shoot you!" Jordan is heard to shout in the call he made to police at 11:35 p.m. Sept. 15, 2014.
Carrion is heard saying he is Jordan's daughter's boyfriend and lives nearby, and the dispatcher tries to keep Jordan calm until officers arrive at his second-floor apartment in Holme Circle.
The audio continues with Carrion's shooting and the screams of Jordan's 20-year-old daughter, Brenda.
"Dad, he's dead!" screams the daughter, who refers to Carrion as "my boyfriend."
Jordan testified that he did not know who Carrion was and that he believed Carrion broke into the apartment he shared with his daughter.
Jordan said he heard several "bangs," grabbed his loaded .38-caliber revolver, and knocked on his daughter's bedroom door and she answered, " 'What?' "
That was when Jordan said he spotted the arched back of someone hiding beside the bed near the windows. Jordan testified that he ordered Carrion to remain on the floor while he dialed 911 on his cellphone.
When Carrion said he needed to stand and began to move, Jordan said, he shot the man.
Philadelphia Deputy Medical Examiner Albert Chu said Carrion died of a gunshot wound after a bullet entered behind his right ear and lodged in his left nasal cavity. Chu said a blood test showed that Carrion had used the illegal stimulant PCP.
"My daughter did not say a word," Jordan testified. "I thought she was just as scared as I was."
Brenda Jordan did not testify at her father's preliminary hearing in January 2015 or at Monday's trial. Authorities say she disappeared shortly after the shooting and has not been located.
Charles Jordan testified Monday that after the shooting, he learned his daughter was a heroin addict, and that she disappeared after leaving an inpatient treatment facility.
Both Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore and defense attorney Todd E. Henry said at Jordan's preliminary hearing that Brenda Jordan and Carrion had seen each other for about a week, that she was a heroin addict, and that Carrion supplied her.
Police found 10 to 15 packets of heroin on the woman's bed.
Henry argued Monday that Jordan was in his own apartment and believed he was acting in self-defense: "This is a tragedy, but it's not a crime."
Pescatore, however, argued that before the shooting, Jordan never asked his daughter if she knew Carrion. The prosecutor said Jordan's claim that Carrion "lunged" toward him was undercut by the fact that Carrion was shot in the back of the head.
DeFino-Nastasi cited Brenda Jordan's silence before the shooting in explaining her not-guilty verdict.
The judge said the crucial two minutes and 15 seconds of the 911 tape has Jordan telling the operator six times that " 'he keeps moving.' That whole time, the daughter doesn't say a word."
DeFino-Nastasi said that to find Jordan guilty of voluntary manslaughter, she would have to believe his conduct was "unreasonable under all circumstances known at the time."
"This was a tragedy; both sides made mistakes," the judge added.
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