Delco jury convicts Philly man in cabbie murder

A Delaware County Court jury on Friday convicted a Philadelphia man of first-degree murder in the 2011 kidnapping and stabbing death of a cab-company manager whose body was found wrapped in trash bags inside a cab in Chester.

Shamar Alexander, 30, of the 1000 block of North 46th Street, also was found guilty of possessing an instrument of crime and abuse of corpse.

The jury deliberated about two hours.

On the night of June 23, 2011, police discovered the body of John "Tony" Dillard, 57, a manager of Germantown Cab Co., inside a cab parked in a lot in the 100 block of Lamokin Street, not far from the Chester High School athletic fields.

He had been beaten, strangled, and stabbed in the neck with a pen, and his body was wrapped in black plastic trash bags.

Alexander confessed to police that he was involved in the crime, but that an accomplice - whom police never were able to locate - had done the actual killing.

In his closing argument, defense attorney Scott Kramer argued that the evidence supported a third-degree murder conviction, but not first- or second-degree.

Prosecutor Erica Parham countered: "The defendant killed Tony Dillard, he put him in trash bags, and he threw him away.

"The killing of John Dillard was willful, it was deliberate, and it was premeditated."