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Men arrested in unrelated murders of two Temple U students

Police say Agatha Hall’s boyfriend shot her to death during an argument, while Shazim Uppal was shot by a Temple classmate during a drug dispute and robbery.

AGATHA HALL was a Temple University senior learning French so she could study abroad. Shazim Uppal had just graduated this summer from Temple's James E. Beasley School of Law.

Both were gunned down a week and 40 miles apart. But yesterday, police in Philadelphia and Delaware announced arrests in their unrelated slayings.

In the more recent case, Hall, 21, of Park Avenue near Dauphin Street in North Philadelphia, was shot in the head in her bedroom sometime before 1 a.m. Aug. 31.

Investigators initially suspected her death was a suicide partly because they found a 9 mm handgun underneath her body, Philadelphia police said.

But the city Medical Examiner's Office determined last Thursday that "it was impossible for the victim's gunshot wound to be self-inflicted," because of the location and trajectory of the gunshot on the top left side of her forehead, police said. The death was then ruled a homicide, police said.

Police arrested her boyfriend, Brandon Meade, 29, of Stockley Avenue near Crosley in Upper Darby, and charged him with murder. He is being held without bail. Police say an argument sparked the deadly gunfire.

Hall, a 2011 Northeast High graduate, was a senior studying finance and international business at Temple. She also worked as a shift manager at a Wawa, according to her LinkedIn page. She had previously been a camp counselor and tutor at a recreation center, according to LinkedIn.

"I am passionate about the financial stability of everyone and will like to focus on foreign affairs and it's (sic) economical strategies that will help benefit the world in the future to come," she wrote on her LinkedIn profile. "I am currently challenging myself by adapting to the French language. In order for this new task of mine to be complete, I plan on studying abroad in France in the upcoming year."

A week earlier, police in Delaware began to hunt for the killer of a Temple graduate who was found dead in his car in the parking lot of a Hockessin nursing home.

Uppal, 27, who lived with his family in a stately home near where he died, had been shot several times in the chest in his black Audi sedan, New Castle County Police said. Officers found him about 7 p.m. Aug. 24 after Genesis Healthcare workers reported that the Audi had been parked there since the previous day.

Investigators found a "substantial amount" of marijuana inside, police said.

Yesterday, police arrested Benjamin Rauf, 25, of Westerlo, N.Y., on murder charges, saying Rauf shot Uppal several times in the chest during a suspected robbery and drug deal.

The men knew one another from Temple University, where both were graduates of Beasley School of Law.

Rauf was arrested by New York State Police as he left home Monday night, police said. He's now being held in New York awaiting extradition to Delaware on charges of first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.

Blog: phillyconfidential.com