Piazza killers might be from out of town

The men who gunned down Rian Thal and Timothy Gilmore in Thal's upscale apartment building last weekend might have traveled from outside Philadelphia and left as soon as they carried out the shootings, police said yesterday.

Police base that theory on the fact that the four men who slipped into the Piazza at Schmidts in Northern Liberties to stake out Thal and Gilmore took no great pains to hide their faces. The attack was captured by multiple security cameras that were visible inside and outside the building, and the footage provided investigators with a detailed look at how the killings were carried out.

Thal, 34, and Gilmore, 40, were ambushed late Saturday afternoon by three gunmen who lay in wait in the stairwells outside Thal's seventh-floor apartment. A fourth man acted as a lookout on a lower floor and alerted the others when Thal and Gilmore returned, police said.

After the shootings, the men left the building quickly and calmly.

Investigators believe Thal, a party planner well-known in the city's club scene, and Gilmore, of Ohio, were targeted because they worked together dealing drugs. One law enforcement source has said Thal acted as a holder for dealers, storing their drugs for them. Police found four kilograms of cocaine and more than $100,000 in Thal's luxury apartment.

Police believe that the gunmen might have intended to rob Thal, but that the confrontation in the hallway went wrong and the men left before they could get into her apartment.

The possibility that the men are from out of town is one of several avenues being investigated, Philadelphia Homicide Capt. James Clark said. The men seemed familiar with the layout of the buildings, which means they might have been there before as Thal's clients, or simply to scope out the place in advance.

"They may turn out to be from here," Clark said. "We're not sure."

Police are also looking into reports that Thal had been kidnapped several years ago as part of a drug dispute, Clark said.

Meanwhile, police are searching for a man who traveled to Philadelphia with Gilmore and who apparently was inside Thal's apartment when the shots were fired.

Gilmore, who lived in Canal Winchester, Ohio, drove a tractor-trailer for a trucking business that police believe served as a front for his drug dealing. Gilmore came to Philadelphia with a man who was reportedly his roommate, and at some point the man was in Thal's apartment while Thal and Gilmore went somewhere.

That man was waiting when Thal and Gilmore returned to the building; they stepped off the elevator and headed down the hall toward the door. The gunmen cornered them and shot each several times.

The man waited inside the apartment for several minutes, then was captured on security cameras as he left the apartment, stepping over Thal's body on his way out, police said. He carried a large duffel bag, Clark said, but police do not know what was in it.

Investigators found Gilmore's truck parked near the Piazza and impounded it, but nothing was inside, Clark said.

Thal and Gilmore were both known to law enforcement agencies, though they might have kept their involvement with drugs secret from many who knew them.

Gilmore was originally from Detroit, where he worked as a firefighter before going on disability. Family members from there were traveling to Philadelphia yesterday, police said.

Members of Thal's family, who live in Plymouth Meeting, laid her to rest yesterday at Mount Jacob Cemetery in Glenolden. Afterward, about 100 friends, loved ones, and former coworkers gathered at Ms. Tootsie's Soul Food Cafe at 13th and South Streets.

Some of Thal's friends knew she flirted with drug use. Thal was arrested in 2001 after a state trooper saw her throw a plastic bag full of cocaine on the floor of a Ridley Township nightclub; she was given probation.

But as far as many people knew, that had been the end of Thal's involvement with drugs. Many have said they were stunned by the details surrounding her death, and angry with the media's portrayal of Thal as a party girl. Thal was fun-loving, they said, but she was also a workaholic.

Jennifer George, a close friend and a fellow event planner, said the photographs on Thal's MySpace profile, which depict Thal posing with celebrities and friends at crowded nightclubs, are misleading.

"People around us live in the fast lane; we don't live in the fast lane," said George, 32. "She was in these clubs because she was working."

George, who knew Thal for five years, said she never saw Thal take drugs. Thal, who recently adopted a kitten and hoped to have a family someday, stuck to Grey Goose vodka and little else, George said.

"Whether they found four kilos of cocaine, that wasn't my girl," she said.

New York City-based caterer Chubby Smith, who met Thal four years ago and attended the funeral, said Thal was too busy to do drugs.

"Every time I call Rian, 'Chubby, call me back, I'm working,' " she said. "Work, work, work."

In the days leading up to her death, Thal's Twitter.com account gives no indication that she believed trouble was coming. She updated her account several times a day, writing about the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, a possible trip to Wal-Mart, a night out with friends, and last week's heavy rainfall.

On the morning before she was killed, her last post was a link to her horoscope.