Posted on Wed, Jul. 1, 2009
One of four men captured in a surveillance video of Saturday's double slaying in an apartment building in Northern Liberties boosted himself up to sit on top of a cabinet in the lobby of the building.
As he waited, he repeatedly touched the top of the cabinet before opening the lobby door for his three co-conspirators.
Fingerprints that were possibly left there could finger him — and lead to others — in the fatal shootings of party-planner Rian Thal, 34, and disabled Detroit firefighter-turned-truck driver Timothy Gilmore, 40, outside her seventh-floor apartment at the Piazza at Schmidts, a trendy residential and retail complex at 2nd and Hancock streets.
"We developed a significant amount of prints throughout the apartment complex," Homicide Capt. James Clark said.
Asked if they matched any criminals' fingerprints, he replied: "In a couple days, hopefully, we'll have a few names."
Clark said investigators are running through a variety of theories about the killers, who spent more than 15 minutes traipsing around the apartment building in full view of surveillance cameras.
There is "a possibility" that the three gunmen and lookout are from outside the city and weren't worried about being caught on tape, he said. Police may send the videos to the FBI lab in Quantico to enhance the images.
Speculation also swirled about Gilmore's friend, dubbed the "big guy," who was believed to be in Thal's apartment at the time of the shootings.
The "big guy" would have had to step over Thal's and Gilmore's bodies to make his escape.
"He probably saw what happened to them and decided it was time to go," a law-enforcement source said. "He's absolutely in their line of work."
The video shows the "big guy" carrying a black duffel bag from the apartment building.
Four kilos of cocaine and more than $100,000 were found in a closet in Thal's apartment, but it was not clear what was in the bag.
Among the theories about the crime, law-enforcement sources said, is that Gilmore and his friend, both from Canal Winchester, Ohio, may have transported the cocaine to Philadelphia in a tractor-trailer later found by police.
But, Clark said, "Therewere no traces of cocaine in the truck."
A security guard was stationed in the building's lobby yesterday. The lobby appeared to be unguarded on Saturday, when the killers easily made their way through the building.
Bart Blatstein, who developed the complex, described the drug-related crime in a statement yesterday as "an isolated incident, not a random crime. It could have happened in Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill or anywhere."
Friends of Thal, who was laid to rest yesterday, struggled to make sense of the apparent double life that led to her death.
A woman who knew Thal from planning work she did for Ms. Tootsie's Soul Food Cafe, on South Street near Clarion, recalled Thal as a "generous" person. "She would do anything and for anybody in a bind," said the woman, who didn't want to be identified.
The woman acknowledged that Thal "was known to hang around a certain group of people" who were involved in illegal activities.
"It wasn't to the extreme that people are now portraying her to be. She wasn't a kingpin." *
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