East Kensington man to be tried for murder in shooting death of daughter, 4

Eleven-year-old Nasheema Riddick, who aspires to be a firefighter, got to spend time Wednesday talking to and high-fiving three Philadelphia Fire Department officials.

The officials, a fire marshal and two captains, were with the youngster to provide moral support while she testified against her stepfather, Maurice Phillips, charged with murder in the April 16 shooting of his 4-year-old daughter, Tahira Phillips.

Nasheema told Municipal Court Judge Karen Y. Simmons how her 30-year-old stepfather was "playing with his gun" while she and five siblings watched SpongeBob SquarePants in their mother's bedroom in East Kensington.

"He called it his toy," said Nasheema - who testified via closed-circuit television from another room at the Criminal Justice Center. She was starting to fall asleep when she was startled by the gunshot.

"It went off," Nasheema said of her stepfather's handgun.

Then she saw that the television screen had cracks in it, and a hole. Her sister was on the floor bleeding from a gunshot wound to her head, she said.

When Assistant District Attorney Gwen Cujdik asked what happened to Tahira, Nasheema quietly replied: "She died."

Nasheema said Phillips never pointed the gun at anyone.

Nevertheless, at the end of Phillips' preliminary hearing, Simmons ordered him to stand trial on third-degree murder and related charges in Tahira's death, and child endangerment and other crimes involving seven siblings he was watching that day in their home on the 200 block of East Mayfield Street.

Phillips was also charged with assault involving daughter Amisha Phillips, 5. Nasheema testified that Phillips punched Amisha in the eye and smeared Tahira's blood on her clothes in what Cujdik said was an attempt to buttress the story he first told police: Amisha accidentally shot her younger sibling.

Cujdik argued that Phillips - instead of calling 911 - moved Tahira's body to another bedroom and left the house. He came back when the children's mother, Tera Riddick, returned. Phillips then changed his clothes and again left, Cujdik added.

Nasheema's testimony was carefully planned by prosecution and defense lawyers and the judge.

On June 15, when the preliminary hearing was first scheduled, the judge and lawyers opted not to proceed after Nasheema said she wanted to attend her fourth-grade graduation before testifying.

Instead, Simmons had Nasheema and her grandmother come into the courtroom, and Simmons introduced the child to the lawyers and then quietly explained the layout of the courtroom and what would happen.

Nasheema, however, said she did not want to be in the same room with Phillips.

Under the Constitution, criminal defendants have a right to be present when an accuser testifies. The solution: closed-circuit television. Phillips sat with defense attorney Susan Ricci in Courtroom 306 at the Criminal Justice Center, the high-security courtroom for homicide preliminary hearings.

Nasheema and family, Simmons, Cujdik, and Ricci's cocounsel, Francis Carmen, sat in the next courtroom down the hall, where a camera transmitted her testimony back to a television monitor in front of Phillips.

Shy and hesitant at first, Nasheema gradually warmed to the proceeding. By the end of 35 minutes of testimony, she was asking lawyers to repeat their questions and - as the judge instructed her - responding with "I don't remember" if she was not sure.

The three fire officials - a fire marshal and two captains - were a surprise. Cujdik said she had told a friend whose husband is a firefighter about Nasheema's desire to be a firefighter.

"I didn't know they were coming," Cujdik said. "The look on her face when she spotted them. . . . It almost brought tears to my eyes."

jslobodzian@phillynews.com

215-854-2985@joeslobo

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