Death penalty eyed by D.A. for 4 in N. Liberties slayings

By KITTY CAPARELLA
Philadelphia Daily News

The District Attorney's Office yesterday filed papers allowing it to seek the death penalty against the alleged mastermind and three gunmen charged with the June 27 murders of Rian Thal and Timothy Gilmore at the Piazza at Schmidts, a trendy retail-apartment complex in Northern Liberties.

Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann, chief of the homicide unit, said that the office was seeking the death penalty against Will Hook, the alleged mastermind of the drug robbery-turned-murders.

Hook was charged under his alias, Keith Epps, along with accused triggermen Donnell Murchison, Antonio Wright and Edward Daniels.

Lawyers for the four men did not return calls from the Daily News.

McCann cited aggravating circumstances, including that there were multiple murders and the fact that the murders were committed in the commission of felonies (robbery and burglary), as the reasons for seeking lethal injections.

He said that the procedural notices had to be filed by yesterday's arraignment even if the D.A.'s office later decides not to seek the death penalty.

In fact, Murchison gave police a statement only after he was promised that the possibility of a death sentence would be waived and if a secure place was found for his family.

Wright also gave a police statement.

Hook, 40, of Susquehanna Avenue near Corlies Street, in North Philadelphia; Murchison, 33, of Limekiln Pike near Stenton Avenue, in West Oak Lane; Wright, 28, of Elkins Park; and Daniels, 42, of Fletcher Street near Sedgeley Avenue in North Philadelphia, were each charged with two counts of murder, robbery, burglary and related charges.

Prior to the robbery, Hook allegedly approached Murchison about a "sweet beat" - a robbery of "out of town boys who had coke," Murchison told police.

Hook and another co-defendant, Robert Keith, 27, allegedly broke into a 6th-floor empty apartment looking for Thal and the money at Navona Apartments early on June 27.

Hook later enlisted Daniels and Wright, in what Hook believed would be a robbery of $500,000 in Thal's apartment, according to testimony.

About 5:30 p.m. on June 27, Hook allegedly sent three gunmen, Murchison, Daniels and Wright to stake out Thal's seventh-floor apartment, according to testimony.

Thal, 34, a party-planner-turned-drug-dealer, and Gilmore, an Ohio trucker who allegedly transported drugs, were then ambushed in the hall by the three gunmen, according to testimony.

Wright told police that Gilmore tried to grab his gun and "pushed my gun up towards his head and got past me, and I fired at him three or four times" as he headed for the elevator.

Murchison said that he "stepped over the guy from Detroit, fired [at his head], missed, and fired again."

Gilmore, lying by the elevator, was riddled with 11 wounds.

At the time, Daniels allegedly held a gun at Thal's head outside her apartment, as she screamed "Don't shoot me!" according to Murchison's statement.

Thal was fatally shot in the right side of her head, according to the Medical Examiner's Office.

Police later found four kilos of cocaine and $111,000 inside Thal's apartment.

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