Woman faces trial on charges she crushed husband with car

Keisha Jones told detectives that she and husband Tyrone Taylor often argued but always made up.

The relationship had lasted eight years - though she twice got so angry at Taylor that she chased him with her car.

The third time was not the charm.

Jones, 30, was held for trial on murder charges Wednesday in the Nov. 27 death of her husband, whom she allegedly crushed between a building and the hood of their 2002 Acura.

Jones spent most of her 50-minute preliminary hearing before Municipal Court Judge David C. Shuter sitting pensively, staring at the floor.

But after Assistant District Attorney Deborah Nixon projected a grainy video of the early morning incident in the 2400 block of Morris Street, Jones wept loudly through the hearing's last five minutes.

Homicide Detective Joseph Bamberski read aloud Jones' statement to detectives, in which she said she and her 29-year-old husband had gone to a South Philadelphia bar and were driving home about 1:50 a.m.

During the drive, Jones told detectives, she and Taylor resumed an argument about a man she met in the bar the night before.

According to Bamberski, Jones said Taylor was jealous, though she insisted she only got the man's address to give to a friend in prison.

At 24th and Morris Streets, Jones' statement continued, the argument reached the point where she ordered Taylor out of the car.

On the video from a security camera outside a corner grocery, a male is seen exiting the black 2002 Acura, walking in front of the headlights and across the street.

Seconds later, the Acura makes a rapid 90-degree right turn and chases the male across the street onto a vacant lot. The male is scooped onto the hood as the front of the car moves off camera and into a building wall.

The female driver leaves the vehicle and rushes toward the front of the car and off camera.

Jones told detectives that she cradled Taylor until police and emergency personnel arrived. He died of multiple impact injuries.

Defense attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. argued that Shuter should hold Jones for trial on manslaughter, not murder, because there was no evidence of a premeditated killing.

"She just wanted to chase and scare him," Peruto told Shuter.

The judge agreed with Nixon's argument that Jones did not hit Taylor when he walked in front of the vehicle but decided to make a hard right turn and chase him across the vacant lot until he was pinned against the building and killed.

"That car was used as a deadly weapon," Nixon said. "The manipulation of that vehicle shows her intent."