Police today arrested a woman who they said helped plan the execution-style killings of Rian Thal and Timothy Gilmore, and who let the three shooters into Thal's Northern Liberties apartment building last Saturday.
Katoya Jones, 25, lives in the same building Thal lived in at the Piazza at Schmidt's. Though Jones was not one of the three people who fired on Thal and Gilmore, police said she played a "significant role" in their deaths.
Thal, 34, a popular local party planner, and Gilmore, 40, of Ohio, were ambushed by three gunmen in the hallway outside Thal's apartment about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Police believe Thal and Gilmore were targeted because they were involved in dealing drugs. Police said Gilmore used his trucking business as a drug front, and investigators found four kilograms of cocaine and more than $100,000 in Thal's apartment.
Jones was charged with murder, conspiracy, attempted robbery and burglary, criminal trespass and possession of an instrument of crime.
Jones was captured by surveillance cameras about 5 p.m. Saturday letting one of the shooters into the building, allowing him to follow her into the lobby. Both got into the elevator and got off at the second floor, then went separate ways. The man returned to the lobby, perched on a piece of furniture, then let in two more men a few moments later.
In the surveillance footage, it did not appear that Jones knew the shooter she let into the building, as she did not speak to him or look at him.
Within moments, those three men had positioned themselves in the stairwells around Thal's seventh-floor apartment. A fourth man, whose entrance to the building was not shown on the surveillance videos, acted as lookout on a lower floor and alerted the others when Thal and Gilmore returned to the building.
Police believe Thal did not know Jones, who has no criminal record. Jones knew the shooters "in some fashion," said Police Sgt. Ray Evers.
Investigators did not know Jones was involved when they released the surveillance footage taken from inside the apartment building on the day of the shootings, Evers said. He would not comment on what led the police to Jones.
Police have said the killings may have begun as a robbery that went wrong quickly. But after Thal and Gilmore were gunned down, the shooters left without taking anything or trying to get into Thal's apartment.
Police are still searching for those men, some of whom left ample fingerprints inside the apartment building.
Additionally, police are searching for information about the man who was inside Thal's apartment when the shootings took place. That man, believed to be an associate of Gilmore's, waited a few minutes and then left the apartment. He was seen on security cameras carrying a large duffel bag, but investigators do not know what was inside.
Contact staff writer Allison Steele at 215-854-2641 or asteele@phillynews.com or staff writer Robert Moran at 215-854-5983 or bmoran@phillynews.com.
Inquirer staff writer Zoe Tillman contributed to this article.
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