Jurors to begin weighing two views of Piazza at Schmidts' murder case

A Philadelphia jury Wednesday will begin sorting out opposing theories of the 2009 murders at the Piazza at Schmidts complex in Northern Liberties.

Were Rian Thal and Timothy Gilmore killed by panicky robbers who shot and bolted before they could get the cash and drugs they believed were in Thal's posh apartment?

Or, as the lawyer representing the alleged mastermind posited Tuesday, were Thal and Gilmore executed by drug dealers who suspected Thal was supplementing her job as a party planner and drug dealer with a secret role as federal informant?

The different takes on the June 2009 killings were outlined in closing arguments by Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega and defense attorney Christopher D. Warren.

In two-hour closing remarks, Warren described client Will "Pooh" Hook as a dupe maneuvered by others into appearing to be the brains behind a botched robbery.

Trying to weave together strands of a conspiracy theory he raised questioning trial witnesses, Warren pointed the jury of seven women and five men to the testimony of Edward Emerson.

Emerson, 43, a Texas truck driver, traveled with Gilmore to Philadelphia with a load of about 11 kilograms of cocaine that was to have been distributed by Thal and her associate, Leon "Za" Woodard, 42. Emerson said he was in Thal's seventh-floor apartment when Thal, 34, and Gilmore, 40, were shot dead in the hallway outside.

Questioned by Warren, Emerson said he did not trust Thal and acknowledged he told Woodard and others he felt there was a possibility she was an informant.

Warren argued that Emerson's nephew had supplied the cocaine from Mexican drug dealers and that Emerson's suspicions led to an order to execute Thal, who died of a contact gunshot wound to the back of her head.

Warren theorized that Woodard and others turned on Hook, luring him to the Piazza - and the view of its security cameras - in the predawn hours of June 27, 2009, where he burglarized the apartment below Thal's after being told the drugs and cash were there.

After the shootings, the gunmen fled without taking what they came for: more than $100,000 in cash and 81/2 pounds of cocaine police later found in Thal's apartment.

Both Woodard and Emerson are serving prison terms and testified for the prosecution under plea agreements.

Warren told the jury his theory was as plausible as the prosecution theory of a botched drug robbery.

"Not a blessed thing got stolen, not a blessed thing," Warren said. "So maybe, just maybe, this botched robbery was to cover up an execution of someone thought to be an informant."

Vega conceded to the jury that Thal and Gilmore dealt drugs: "Two families are grieving, two families have learned their children were not perfect."

But the killings were motivated solely by greed, Vega said. "They could have done anything to them, but they decided, 'Let's kill them.' "

Vega mocked Warren's execution theory, telling the jury that "the most obvious conclusion is the right one. . . . He talks about everything else but what happened - somebody got killed."

Vega said the evidence - including cellphone records of calls from Hook to the gunmen around the time of the murder - all pointed to Hook as the mastermind and Antonio Wright and Edward Daniels the gunmen he recruited.

Vega argued that Hook sat in a van outside the Piazza's Navona building as his gunmen turned the robbery into a double murder.

Tuesday's closings followed nine days of testimony since Nov. 17. Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart told the jurors he would instruct them on the law Wednesday morning and they would start deliberating.

None of the three - Hook, 43, also known as Keith Epps; Daniels, 44; and Wright, 30 - testified in their defense.

All are charged with felony murder - killing during another serious crime - and face mandatory life terms without chance of parole if the jury finds them guilty.

They were among eight people arrested in the slayings. Four pleaded guilty before jury selection began Nov. 7; a final defendant, arrested a year after the shootings, will be tried later.