Two people are dead and three were wounded after a series of shootings in Philadelphia on Saturday.
Police said they were investigating a potential murder-suicide after finding a man and woman dead in Port Richmond on Saturday afternoon.
Around 1:35 p.m., officers responded to a reported shooting on the 2800 block of Mercer Street, police said. There, police said, they found a man and woman with gunshot wounds, and both were pronounced dead at the scene.
“Preliminary information indicates the incident was domestic in nature and is being investigated as a murder-suicide,” police said.
It was the third shooting of the day, according to police reports.
Earlier, police said, two people were critically injured by gunfire in the Hunting Park section of the city.
Around 12:30 a.m., officers responded to the 4300 block of North Fifth Street after receiving a radio call saying a man had been shot near a barbershop and another man had been seen with a gun, police said.
Officers found two people who had been shot inside a gray Honda Pilot SUV, police said. The victims were taken to Temple University Hospital.
Police said a 22-year-old man had been “shot multiple times in the upper torso” and was in critical but stable condition.
A 17-year-old girl had been shot in the head and left leg and was in “serious-critical condition,” police said.
Capt. Shaun Butts told reporters at the scene on Saturday that police found 25 spent shell casings, three projectiles, and “some money left on the scene and all throughout the car.”
Separately, police said they were investigating another shooting on South Fourth Street that happened around 2 a.m. The circumstances around that shooting are unknown, police said. Police noted that a man with a gunshot wound walked into Thomas Jefferson University Hospital around 8:15 a.m.
No arrests have been made, nor motive determined, in either overnight shooting, police said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include information from an interview conducted with Michael van der Veen and William Brennan after the story was published. van der Veen, Brennan, and their attorney, George Bochetto, did not responded to multiple interview requests in the days leading up to publication.
A newly formed local group sued the Gayborhood’s Bar X this month, alleging it is a public nuisance. The group wants to shutter the decade-old business, whose clientele is largely Black.
The lawsuit asks a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge to order the Camac Street bar to cease operations. It arrives at a time of increased police presence on the nightlife strip and heightened tension between the city’s Black LGBTQ+ community and police.
Bar X has “repeatedly generated excessive noise, disorderly conduct, disturbances, violence, public intoxication” and requires a constant police presence, the complaint says. It also claimed neighbors have observed “public displays of drunkenness and sexual activity” outside the bar.
The city failed by maintaining the establishment’s business license, the suit says, urging a judge to revoke it.
Behind the lawsuit is Michael van der Veen, a 62-year-old high-profile Center City lawyer whose office is in the building across from Bar X on Camac Street.
The bar has been using the office’s parking spot for years, van der Veen said, despite repeated requests to remain off the lawyer’s private property.
But things escalated in July when, according to van der Veen, he was assaulted while leaving his office around 9 p.m. at night.
“When I got jumped from behind and got coldcocked, I was done,” he said.
Days later, veteran criminal defense lawyer William Brennan incorporated Save Our Neighborhood for Tomorrow Inc., the group that filed the lawsuit against “the dive bar of the Gayborhood,” as Bar X pitches itself.
“This changed when passive-aggressive behavior became assaultive-aggressive behavior,” Brennan said. “It can’t be tolerated.”
Save Our Neighborhood for Tomorrow does not appear to have a website or social media presence.
Defense attorneys Michael van der Veen, left, and William Brennan arrive to criminal court in New York in 2022 for Trump’s tax fraud case. Seth Wenig
George Bochetto, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the newly formed group, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Bochetto is also representing a different group of Pine Street and Spruce Street residents who won an injunction to pause safety upgrades to bike lanes.
The lawsuit against Bar X names owner Tony Tsang, business entities associated with the bar, the city, and the commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections, Bridget Collins-Greenwald. The city did not respond to requests for comment.
Tsang disputed the allegations of public drunkenness and sexual activity and said the bar is a longtime fixture of the block.
“You don’t like it, you like it quieter, how come you don’t move out of the city?” Tsang, 59, said in a recent interview at the bar. “One block, three bars, how come they’re only complaining about us?”
A ‘very homey’ gay bar
Bar X sits between Locust and Spruce on Camac, a narrow, 200-year-old street that is home to two other gay bars, Tavern on Camac and UBar. It is also around the corner from the bar 254, which replaced Tabu. Those three bars are all owned by the Tavern Group.
Tsang said the majority of his clientele is Black and suggested that the lawsuit had more to do with his identity and that of his patrons than the noise or disturbance allegations.
“To me, it’s the color. I’m Asian. My English isn’t too good. They want to play a game with me,” Tsang said.
Tsang opened his bar in 2016, naming it Bar X so it would be easy for people to remember. The bar’s exterior features a rainbow mural of tropical leaves; inside Tsang hung Ikea posters of Audrey Hepburn and James Dean. He said he stocks the bar himself, buying whatever club soda is on sale at the supermarket.
The bar has a large dance floor and a DJ booth that abuts the alley.
Joseph Ward, a part-time bartender at Bar X who also runs its social media and marketing, said the bar stands out because it’s “very homey,” with Taco Tuesdays and twice-weekly karaoke. (There’s also a male revue every Thursday night.)
Bar X owner Tony Tsang said he stocks the bar himself with whatever club soda is on sale at the supermarket.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
“You [can] just chill and not have to worry about the hustle and bustle of a nightclub,” Ward, 36, said. He said the bar is one of the last minority-owned clubs in the Gayborhood and hosts a largely nonwhite crowd.
The lawsuit cites negative Google reviews from people purporting to be Bar X customers, including accounts of stolen phones and allegations that a bartender gave patrons drinks containing sedatives.
The remedy to the situation, the suit says, is for the city to shut down the bar.
Ward said that rumors of drugged drinks at the bar had gained traction online earlier this year, but that staff had not been able to verify any crimes, despite reaching out to those making the accusations. In response, the bar ordered covers for customers’ drinks.
“We take pride in it being a safe place in the Gayborhood,” Ward said, “so we obviously want to keep it that way.”
A new police deployment
Bar X’s block has seen an increase in crime incidents this year, according to Philadelphia Police Department public data.
The lawsuit claims that since last summer there have been nearly 70 crime incidents at the property, including “multiple reports of a person with weapons, assaults, robbery, and disorderly conduct.”
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In April, the Washington Square West Civic Association hosted a meeting with residents, city officials, and Tsang in an attempt to address neighborhood complaints. Councilmember Mark Squilla, who represents the area and attended the meeting, estimated that more than 40 people attended.
In response, the city experimented with one-off street cleanings of Camac to address litter, Squilla said. Police also began clearing the street of people on weekend nights after 2 a.m., when the bar closes.
“We’ll continue to work on compliance and whatever else is needed there,” Squilla said.
A Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson confirmed there is currently a “bar/nightclub” deployment in the bar’s general area. The department has used similar deployments throughout the city for decades to respond to community concerns and public safety needs, Sgt. Eric Gripp said in a statement.
Jacen Bowman, president of Philly Black Pride, testified earlier this month at a City Council Committee on Legislative Oversight hearing into the Philadelphia Police tactics used during Pride celebrations in June.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
“Black and brown LGBTQ+ people are watched differently. We are approached differently. We are policed differently,” Jacen Bowman of Philly Black Pride said at the hearing. “Too often we are made to feel like visitors in a neighborhood that is promoted as the heart of Philadelphia’s LGBTQ+ community.”
The marred fields of Lemon Hill Park are the remaining signs of the longest summer party the city has ever seen. Half a million people gathered in the park for 39 days straight, dancing to the All-American Rejects, cheering on World Cup matches, and sharing meals on blankets across more than a million square feet of the Fairmount park.
The FIFA Fan Festival, by most accounts from the city, tourists, and residents, was a resounding success, offering a premium World Cup experience at a sliver of the cost of attending a game. Philly’s fan experience was considered one of the most affordable and popular in the country.
Soccer fans gather to watch Mexico play South Africa on a giant screen during the opening day of the FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill on June 11.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Now that the party is wrapped, the caretakers of Lemon Hill and nearby residents are hoping the city makes good on a promise to restore the park to its former glory, if not better.
Philadelphia Soccer 2026, organizer of the FIFA Fan Festival, committed $4 million to park upgrades, from new picnic pavilions and a playground to safer sidewalks and traffic-calming measures at intersections. Additional funding will come from the city, but when asked, a city spokesperson declined to reveal the total budget and said more details will come during a groundbreaking celebration in September.
The city gathered input from the community across nine public engagement sessions beginning in 2024 that netted 350 comments from 200 participants that helped shape which improvements would be prioritized.
While residents and caretakers welcome park improvements, it is not lost on them that financial backing comes only after large companies use the space, though locals have been requesting help for years, said Shaun Cerborino, a co-organizer of Lemon Hill’s volunteer parks group. What’s more, without long-term maintenance funding, the upkeep of the park and its new upgrades will fall to caretakers once again.
Large grass-less sections remain following FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill on July 28. Fan Fest wrapped up on July 19.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Deferred maintenance billed as ‘legacy projects’
A month after the World Cup ended, the largest Lemon Hill field thatstaged the festival is still mostly filled with dirt, patches of wilting grass, and the occasional leftover screw and other small construction waste. The city began aerating and preparing the soil for regrowth in July.
The grass will grow back, said Cerborino and Nissa Eisenberg, Fairmount residents and co-organizers of the Lemon Hill Neighbors Association, which provides regular volunteer maintenance to the park. But what caretakers truly are concerned about is long-term support after the city finishes its upgrades months from now.
Additionally, many of the improvements considered legacy projects are really “deferred maintenance” that had been requested for years, and came about only when corporations needed to use the park, Cerborino said.
Large grass-less sections remain following FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill on July 28. Fan Fest wrapped up on July 19.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
“Instead of properly funding Parks and Recreation, the city looks toward private ventures to help keep the lights on and generate enough money to maintain — which we’re barely doing anyway,” Cerborino said.
In Philadelphia, there is no dedicated budget for parks and open space; instead, the city and volunteers rely on the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation budget to maintain parks. They also look to grants, private nonprofits, and thousands of volunteers who weed, fix, and maintain trails and park space as part of “Friends” groups. Philadelphia relies on volunteers at more than twice the national average.
Since taking office, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has raised the parks and recreation department’s budget each year, doubling its spending from $53 per resident on parks in 2024 to $110 per resident in 2026. And while 97% of Philadelphians can walk 10 minutes and find a park, far exceeding the national average, Philadelphia still spends about half as much on its parks as the national average, according to the Trust for Public Land.
Improvements like upgraded sidewalks, lighting, signage, and recreation areas are standards that should already be met by the city, which is home to some of the highest-ranked parks in the country, Cerborino said.
Small holes line sections of the park, possibly following aeration, after FIFA Fan Festival at Lemon Hill on July 28. Fan Fest wrapped up on July 19.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Residents may have their park back, but restoration is far from over
Fairmount residents are all but back to their usual park routines after the festival equipment was removed, but they say it is still a long way before Lemon Hill is back to normal.
Last month,Samantha Tartaglino was walking her German shepherd, Marley, through the flattened fields. Marley sprinted through swaths of dead, brown grass, unfazed by the patches. Tartaglino said Marley was just happy to be back in wide-open spaces, as the dog had to make do with a smaller park nearby for weeks.
Lemon Hill’s open fields are a key reason for why many move to this part of Fairmount, Tartaglino said, but even before the fan festival, residents felt the park was not being supported to its fullest potential.
“I feel like FIFA and World Cup put the city under pressure and kicked them into gear,” Tartaglino said.
The city has already put into place many of its legacy commitments, like new ADA-compliant sidewalks and ramps along Sedgley Drive, traffic-calming measures at the intersection of Sedgley and Poplar Drives, and additional lighting fixtures.
But the community’s request for permanent bathrooms, water fountains, and portable water stations has gone unanswered, Eisenberg said. The city says those things can happen only if there is an on-site park staffer due to concerns about maintenance and vandalism.
A project with a longer timeline will be a new 43,500-square-foot playground, with construction expected to stretch into April 2027, according to Philadelphia Soccer 2026 and the city. And while construction is underway, the playground and basketball courts will be closed.
Eisenberg lamented that. What was once presented as a plan for residents to give up park space for two months during the World Cup will now last much longer, she said, as grass fields will need to grow back and other amenities are closed for renovation.
“The basketball court is one of the most heavily used assets of the park, but they’re planning to use the court as a staging area for the construction,” Eisenberg said. “Which I get because it’s conveniently located, but you just put on this multimillion-dollar event; I’m sure you can find another area to stage construction materials so that at least the basketball court isn’t offline all winter.”
City officials say the plan is worth the wait.
“We expect the legacy improvements to be completed next spring and are excited for neighbors and future visitors to enjoy a renewed Lemon Hill … that builds on the excitement of this summer while serving Philadelphians for years to come,” acity spokesperson said.
The playground and basketball courts at Lemon Hill Park in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia. Since the 2026 World Cup has ended and the FIFA Fan Festival staged at the park has left, restoration efforts are underway with funding from various private and public stakeholders.Henry Savage / Staff
Lack of long-term maintenance funding
While projects such as renovating the playgrounds, basketball courts, and baseball fields are welcome, the Lemon Hill Neighbors Association fears that once city crews finish the work, the caretakers will be right back where they started — working off “love and duct tape” with little financial support.
This means park improvements come only after long periods of push and pull between Philadelphia Parks and Recreation staffers and volunteer park caretakers, leaving long-termmaintenance to fall to volunteer groups that dedicate their time and money to keeping parks usable.
“We understand that a lot of times Parks and Recreation is understaffed or underfunded, but then that means we’re going to have to pick up that role,” Eisenberg said. “We need help, and the Parks and Recreation budget needs to reflect it.”
Earlier this week, Temple graduate student Kyle McCurly was lounging in the undamaged grass surrounding the large field that just housed the festival. Having grown up in rural Georgia and recently back from a trip to Austin, Texas, McCurly said Philly’s parks could be so much more with long-term maintenance, and not just at Lemon Hill. Henoted that Austin invests twice as much money as Philadelphia does in its parks per resident, according to the Trust for Public Land.
“Everyone’s going to have different opinions on how the funding itself is created,” McCurly said. “But I think that it’s worth consistent investment to make green spaces more accessible and enjoyable in the city.”
Say you’re delivering packages, pizzas, or people. Or you’re a newspaper photographer out looking for pictures. If you’ve been driving around a city for a few years, the streets might seem ordinary, but then something about an intersection, a store front or a sign gives you that feeling of Déjà vu.
Of all our senses, sound, taste and smell are usually considered the most powerful memory triggers. Like when Sam “Plays it again” in Casablanca or Anton Ego tastes Remy’s ratatouille. Or when any of us open a brand new box of Crayola crayons.
But as a photographer it is the visual reminders that are powerful. Driving in the city I am always taken back to a graduation party I photographed down a particular street, or the sunset I framed. Or how I negotiated a hill in a snowstorm, or covered a shooting on that block.
Sometimes I feel like I have been leaving bread crumbs behind me as I drive everywhere, waiting to be remembered.
A 1950s Dodge Meadowbrook parked near Front and Main Streets in Camden.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Stalled in backed-up traffic for the ongoing construction on Rt. 70 in Cherry Hill last week, I glanced over at a bus shelter. I recalled years ago seeing riders standing in the slim shadow of a utility pole to get just a tiny bit of some shade from the sun while waiting for their bus.
They waited next to a multimillion dollar retail development on the site of the former Garden State Racetrack. The mostly minimum wage workers who rode the bus to their jobs there didn’t even have a bench to sit on — let alone relief from the elements while waiting to go home. Back then I photographed commuters sitting on overturned shopping carts and tried to interest an editorial writer to take up their cause.
Eventually, a bench was put there, and a few years later a shelter was installed. But as I sat in my car the other day, it still didn’t look right. I turned into the shopping center and walked over.
Wayne Peters picks up trash while waiting for a bus with Bobby White.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Wayne Peters tells me he’s been taking NJ Transit’s 406 bus to and from Camden for about two years, and says this stop has “gotta be the worst in the state.” He says he always picks up trash when he’s there, and adds more to the piles already in the shopping carts that serve as receptacles.
Fellow rider Bobby White added, “You’d think something in Cherry Hill would be better. How hard would it be to put a trash can here?” Before their bus arrives, Peters, trying to be positive about the shelter, reminds him “They fixed a broken window once.”
Another thing about revisiting so many corners of our region is it becomes easy to think I’ve seen it all. And then I hear about a place I didn’t know anything about.
A semi-retired friend from Bucks County and her friend try to take weekly drives every Thursday they call “Highways of History.” Last week she texted me some photos saying “guess where we are.”
My photo of an old wharf and pavilion on the Delaware River Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. The Nary Yard in Philadelphia is across the river.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Now in all my years of being like a UPS, DoorDash, or Lyft driver I had never been to the place in her pictures. I could tell from her other stops that she was nearby, which made it even more mysterious. There was a carousel and other things for kids, like a smaller version of the giant covered wooden slide I’d been to at Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park.
Just like the well-known Philly playground that is considered a childhood rite of passage, a New Jersey version has been around for well over a century and when she told me it was only twenty minutes from my house I was completely gobsmacked.
Not only had I never even heard of the place as a journalist, but it never even entered my consciousness during those years when my wife and I were constantly googling “things to do with a toddler” finding ways to keep our kids — and ourselves — entertained and out of the house.
She told the me her father took the ferry there from Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown and “spent many a happy day along with hundreds of other poor kids in the 1930s for free soup and crackers and a carefree day.”
It’s called Soupy Island. It was founded in 1877 on an island in the Delaware River by the Sanitarium Association of Philadelphia, a group of doctors who wanted to help sick city kids with tuberculosis recover with fresh air, playtime, and that free soup. When the Delaware was dredged a few years later and the island was wiped out, the camp moved to the mainland, on the Jersey banks of the river.
My love of history was sparked and I could not believe the connections. My own father, growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota, was sent away every summer to the “Prev.” He shared many great memories with me of learning how to swim and fish at a preventorium on a lake.
Boys fishing at the Children’s Preventorium on Lake Owasso near Shoreview, Minnesota in the 1930s.Minnesota Historical Society
As its name implies, it was designed to halt tuberculosis among children by getting them away from their crowded, mostly immigrant inner-city neighborhoods and out to the country.
I spent the weekend digging around and reading everything I could to learn all about Soupy Island, amazed to see The Inquirer had done a number of stories about it, even in the years I’d lived here (kids were still coming over by ferry from Penn Treaty well into the 1980s.)
An original 1930s German-made Ferrari-Heyn carousel at Soupy Island.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Seeing that it was closing up for the summer, I planned to reach out the caretaker on Monday to go make pictures. That’s when I learned my colleague, reporter Sarah Nicell, was visiting on their penultimate day of the season. She grew up in South Jersey, and she had never heard of it before either.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
The Eagles play on Thanksgiving and again on Christmas Eve. Then, we have the Sixers on Christmas Day. Really, can you blame the networks? The Eagles are one of the biggest draws in football, and the Sixers just added LeBron James. Basically if you need people to stop talking to their relatives and look at the TV for three hours, Philadelphia can help.
Eagles on Thanksgiving Eagles on Christmas Eve Sixers on Christmas Day
Not everyone considers this a gift. One fan corrected “running” the holidays to “ruining” them, while another pointed out that getting together with family is stressful enough without adding an Eagles game. But nothing brings a family together quite like a holiday, until a questionable fourth-down call has Uncle Mike pacing around the living room refusing to speak to anyone.
The only thing we need to complete the calendar, one fan noted, is the Eagles on Valentine’s Day in Super Bowl LXI.
Every summer, someone discovers how much it costs to vacation at the Jersey Shore and the internet holds a small trial.
This year’s defendant is a Philly mom who went viral after revealing her family pays $10,000 for a Shore rental — one where they still have to bring their own sheets, toilet paper, paper towels, coffee, and, presumably, half the contents of their house, the New York Post reported.
Her description was pretty devastating: “Basically, we’re paying $10,000 to camp.”
Naturally, the internet had feelings. “For $10,000, you could go to Greece! The Caribbean! Somewhere with turquoise water where nobody makes you buy a beach tag!”
And, OK, they’re not wrong. Ten grand is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a house where you arrive Saturday afternoon and immediately realize someone forgot the cardboard box with the BYO ketchup bottle, olive oil, and salt and pepper shakers.
But the Jersey Shore has never been a purely rational vacation decision. For a lot of families around here, it’s the same town every summer, the same pizza place, the same mini golf course, the same people crammed into a rental house together. You know exactly what you’re getting.
Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering leaves after allowing three runs during the eighth inning of the game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 9, 2026. The Phillies won in extra innings 7 to 6.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
The Phillies bullpen experience: C-
At this point, a Phillies starter leaving the game with a four-run lead feels less like good news and more like the beginning of a hostage situation.
Jesús Luzardo gave them seven innings Sunday, struck out 12, and handed the bullpen a 5-2 lead. Orion Kerkering promptly helped turn it into a tie game. The Phillies eventually won, but only after 12 innings and considerably more stress than should have been required.
Luckily, Andrew Painter carried a no-hitter into the sixth, Alan Rangel got within one run of disaster before escaping the eighth, and Jonathan Bowlan needed only 10 pitches to record his first major league save. Mattingly summed up the evening afterward: “We survived, right?”
That’s pretty much where we are. The Phillies have enough talent to get to October, but we’re getting awfully close to the part of the season when “we survived” needs to become a less eventful way to win a baseball game.
The acclaimed chicken sandwich at the Point Breeze corner store owned by Lynda Cong and her husband, Jimmy Cong, on Aug. 5, 2026.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Some people call it Mrs. Lee’s. Others call it Jimmy’s. Credit card receipts say Kim Woa Store. There’s no visible sign outside to settle the matter, which hasn’t stopped people from finding their way to 17th and Wharton for nearly three decades.
In fact, former Point Breeze residents drive back from New Jersey, Delaware, and even North Carolina for the $9 sandwich, and TikTok has now sent customers from Canada. All for two crispy chicken cutlets on potato bread from a corner store where you can also grab a single roll of toilet paper.
The Cong family says they’re selling about 50 sandwiches a day now, although they seem considerably less impressed by their newfound internet attention than everyone eating them.
Philly vs. the universe: D
The universe put on quite the show Wednesday: a partial eclipse, four planets lined up in the sky, and the Perseid meteor shower reaching its peak overnight.
To be fair, we weren’t missing much with the eclipse. Only about 8% of the sun was blocked here, which an actual astrophysicist said you probably wouldn’t even notice. But the Perseids were supposed to be the real prize, with a moonless sky making this one of the better nights to look up and catch a few meteors.
Unfortunately, after a summer of heat, humidity, and random downpours, the weather couldn’t give us one night off.
The Sixers’ P.J. Tucker tries to block a shot by LeBron James during the Los Angeles Lakers at Philadelphia 76ers game at the Wells Fargo Center on Dec. 9, 2022.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The LeBron tax: B
Remember when we were all having fun with this?
LeBron James is a Sixer! People were sunburning his number into their backs! We’re getting a Christmas Day game! Maybe this really is the year!
Well, here comes the invoice.
Tickets haven’t even officially gone on sale yet, and the cheapest seats on the secondary market for the Sixers’ home opener against Cleveland are already flirting with $500, NBC reported. Last year, comparable seats for opening night were around $100.
It’s not exactly surprising. The Sixers added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to a team with Tyrese Maxey, and suddenly every game comes with the possibility of seeing something you’ll be talking about for years.
Still, there’s something cruel about finally assembling the kind of Sixers team we’ve been begging for and immediately discovering we may have to enjoy it from the couch. At least it won’t be $30 for a beer at home.
Two men were wounded in separate North Philadelphia shootings Friday night, police said.
Around 8:15 p.m., an unidentified man was shot multiple times in the area of 21st and Gratz Streets. He was transported by police to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.
Less than 20 minutes later, a 23-year-old man was shot in the area of 25th and Elkhart Streets, said Inspector D.F. Pace.
The man was transported by private vehicle to Temple, where he was listed in stable condition.
A judge on Friday found a man guilty of assaulting seven women in separate incidents last year near Rittenhouse Square, in a string of attacks prosecutors called “remarkably similar” that left the women shocked and scared.
Dynel Walker, 38, was found guilty of more than a dozen crimes tied to the incidents, spanning from indecent assault to forcible compulsion, harassment, simple assault, and related offenses, Common Pleas Court Judge Nicholas Kamau decided following a two-day trial.
Kamau also acquitted Walker of more than a dozen charges, including unlawful restraint, harassment, and simple assault, among others, finding that prosecutors had not presented sufficient evidence to support them.
Prosecutors said Walker targeted women who were alone and walking in the early-morning hours in the Rittenhouse Square area, approaching them on the street before groping them, exposing himself, or masturbating in their presence. In several of the incidents last July and August, Walker followed the women before confronting them. Once, he pushed a woman to the ground when she fought back, prosecutors said.
In one incident, prosecutors said, Walker approached a woman walking her dog near 19th and Spruce Streets and groped her, then fled.
In another incident, Walker made eye contact with a woman in the 1600 block of Pine Street, then masturbated on the sidewalk while he watched her, prosecutors said.
Walker knocked one woman down as she fought him off, leaving her with minor scrapes on her arms and one leg, prosecutors said.
At least three of the assaults were captured on surveillance video, which showed clear images of Walker wearing a distinctive black hooded sweatshirt with a chicken on its front, said Assistant District Attorney Megan Odonnell.
Philadelphia detectives began searching for Walker after screenshots from the surveillance videos were shared with local media and led to an anonymous tip identifying Walker. Detectives later found images on Walker’s cell phone showing him wearing the same hooded sweatshirt as the assailant, prosecutors said. All seven women eventually linked Walker to their assaults through photo arrays.
The women’s identification of Walker became a point of contention for his defense attorney, Ryan Ivins, who argued that the women picked Walker only after images had been widely disseminated by the media, including The Inquirer.
Even then, Ivins said, about half of the women were not completely certain that Walker was the man who had accosted them.
One told police she was 60% sure, Ivins said, while another gave Walker a seven out of 10 chance of being her attacker. That, Ivins argued, “casts significant doubt” on the reliability of the women’s identification of Walker and whether the photo arrays were tainted by the media coverage.
Before rendering his verdict, Kamau also had the opportunity to watch Walker’s initial interview with detectives, in which he acknowledged the images shown in the news were, in fact, of him.
In the video of the interview, Walker also told detectives that he was homeless and often slept in the area of Rittenhouse Square because “I felt safe in that area.” Because of that, Walker said, he was not surprised that surveillance cameras had captured him nearby.
But Walker denied committing the assaults, telling detectives: “I don’t have any involvement in that. … I wouldn’t get any enjoyment from that.”
Walker is slated to be sentenced by Kamau in November.
Philadelphia police this week acknowledged that the sprawling missing persons investigation in Olney has evolved into something even more complex — a death investigation without any dead bodies.
Adding to the challenge is that there are now at least four missing women linked to a crumbling house on West Chew Avenue, where for decades, Raymond “R.C.” Horsch had lured drug-addicted women to shoot pornographic photos and movies depicting graphic violence.
On Wednesday, Police Inspector Raymond Evers said a hard drive recovered from the family home of Raymond and his son Eugene Albert Horsch contained “images and video of what appeared to be two deceased females” taken inside — and that police believed the women had really died there, even though they have found no human remains.
“Usually when we have a homicide investigation, we have a body, we have body parts,” Evers said. “This time we do not.”
Police said they have not yet determined when Gabrielle Amarando and Maribel “Bella” Fresses died. Without a body, the medical examiner, too, cannot determine a cause or manner of death, and officials did not share publicly, or with the women’s families, the extent of their injuries.
Law enforcement sources said the images showed women with ashen skin, posed in ways that would be nearly impossible for someone who was still alive. Authorities are still working to identify dozens more people featured in the materials to determine where they are today — and if they’re still alive, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe.
The images are further complicated by the fact that Raymond Horsch spent decades using women struggling with addiction as models in apparent snuff films and pornographic photos that featured bondage, sexual violence, and death. Some appeared to be staged or digitally altered.
Michael Yoder, a retired FBI agent who has advised on over 45 no-body homicide cases, said he had never seen a case of this nature, as the typical such case involves a missing spouse or relative.
“This is a no-body homicide and a potential serial homicide case,” Yoder said. “The fact that you also have these videos of simulated deaths or assaults, I’ve never seen that in a no-body homicide case.”
Gabrielle Amarando (left), missing since 2012, and Maribel Fresses, 27, reported missing in 2018. Police believe they were killed inside the Olney home.Obtained by The Inquirer
Detectives have so far reviewed around 5% of hundreds of thousands of photos, videos, and written materials recovered in the home. Yet despite the trove of digital files, police say they have found not a trace of human remains or DNA from any missing women.
Police say they have evidence that some works likely went beyond make-believe.
The two women police said died at the house were last seen about a decade ago.
Evers said Wednesday that “if the images and the video are real and not altered in any way,” the women are dead. That leaves police facing the unusual prospect of seeking formal death declarations for both women in the city’s Orphans’ Court without a body, which adjudicates the rights of persons unable to handle their own affairs.
Police were first led to the home after Eugene Horsch, 44, was arrested during a June 19 car stop that uncovered illegal weapons and the phony ID in the name of another woman, Blair Tonzelli, who was reported missing in 2023 and last seen at the Olney home. A fourth missing woman, Amy McHale, Raymond’s ex-wife, was also last seen at this house in June 2016.
Inside the crumbling twin, investigators found chemical vats, dozens of computers and hard drives, and a cryptic handwritten note that referenced harming people and alluded to serial killer Ted Bundy.
Raymond Horsch died last year. Eugene has not been accused of any violent crimes. He was incarcerated at the time of at least one disappearance. An attorney for Horsch has declined comment.
After years of silence from their daughters, the Fresses and Amarando families said they were devastated to learn from police that the women are dead. But their relatives still don’t have all the answers they seek.
“I hate to say it, but I don’t have an actual body to say, ‘OK, this is my daughter,’” said Patricia Fresses, Maribel’s mom. “I need to see it.”
Maribel Fresses, 27, reported missing in 2018. Police believe she was killed inside the Olney home.Courtesy of Melissa Fresses
A rise of no-body homicides
Bodiless murder cases have become more common in recent decades, thanks to advances in forensic technology that have enabled prosecutors to bring charges in cases with limited physical evidence.
Some past cases locally have ended in successful convictions.
In 1997, the FBI arrested former Delaware prosecutor Thomas J. Capano, who was a suspect in the 1996 disappearance of congressional aide Anne Marie Fahey in Philadelphia.
To this day, Fahey’s remains have never been found. However, the pair were known to be having an affair, and they were last seen together dining in Center City. Letters written by Capano pointed to an increasingly controlling romantic relationship, and a search of his car and home later revealed traces of Fahey’s blood.
The former prosecutor was later arrested and convicted in 1999 of murder.
But that outcome is not always certain.
In Chester County, in 2025, Malvern resident Allen Gould was charged with homicide following the 2017 disappearance of his wife, Anna Maciejewska, who has also never been found. Prosecutors alleged that Gould demonstrated little concern about this vanishing, reporting it to law enforcement only under pressure from family and friends.
Yet without a body or murder weapon, Gould’s lawyers have argued the prosecution is built on circumstantial evidence.
That case is expected to proceed to trial later this year.
A former U.S. Attorney told The Inquirer in 2013 that, nationwide, 88% of the 400 no-body homicide cases that had gone to trial ended in convictions. Yet this figure only accounts for the cases that are actually brought before a court.
In the Capano matter, investigators were able to charge the former prosecutor because of additional forensic evidence, and the suspect’s own inconsistent testimony about their final moments together.
But investigators in the Horsch case face three steep challenges: There are no bodies, no other human remains, and one potential suspect — Raymond Horsch — died last year from a lung condition at the age of 82.
Yoder, the retired FBI profiler, said a no-body homicide prosecution would require evidence that clearly shows someone else was responsible for the deaths, and said additional forensic details like metadata taken from the photographs could establish a compelling timeline. Raymond’s graphic fantasies, he reasoned, would be irrelevant to the prosecution of another suspect.
“If you say he videoed women in fake death or fake assaults on video, it’ll throw a jury through a loop,” he said. “You’re getting the point of, if they don’t believe something, they won’t believe everything.”
Gabrielle Amarando as a child. Gabrielle was missing since 2012 and police believe she was likely killed in the house on Chew Avenue in Olney.Courtesy of Karen Amarando Riley
No bodies, no closure
Regardless of the possibilities for justice in court, death declarations also generally mark the end of any hope that an individual or their remains will ever be found or properly interred.
In a 1980s article on the Orphans’ Court, a judge told The Inquirer they handled about a half dozen bodiless death declarations annually, but could not recall any in which a missing person was later found.
“Most of them just disappear,” the judge said.
Last year, Gabrielle’s mom, Karen Amarando Riley, talked to a psychic in a desperate attempt to get answers about her missing daughter.
Riley said the psychic described Gabrielle’s descent into addiction, and that she couldn’t see Gabrielle alive past the age of 27, which would have been in 2017.
The mother was shaken.
“She nailed everything … the time she started doing drugs and what drugs she did and everything in her life,” she said. “The last image she could get was Gabrielle standing in front of a brick building in a city.”
“I just wanted closure,” she said. “And she couldn’t give it to me either.”
Gabrielle Amarando with her mother, Karen Amarando Riley. Gabrielle was missing since 2012 and police believe she was likely killed in the house on Chew Avenue in Olney.Courtesy of Karen Amarando Riley
The families of the Fresses and Amarandos — and potentially others seeking loved ones who vanished in Kensington — now face the possibility of closure without the recovery of a body or, possibly, a homicide conviction.
Riley, of Ocala, Fla., last heard from her daughter Gabrielle when she called from a Philadelphia prison on Christmas Day in 2012.
“I thought maybe she overdosed because she would have been in touch with somebody, if not me, somebody,” Riley said.
She is tormented by the thought that her child was reduced from the beautiful aspiring model she once knew, falling into addiction and, police say, ultimately being lured into the home on Chew Avenue.
“It tears me up. I don’t know what he did to her before he killed her,” she said. “I always wanted closure, but I didn’t want this.”
Thora Jacobson, 77, of Philadelphia, award-winning former chief executive officer at the Fleisher Art Memorial, former executive director at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, former director of design review for Mural Arts Philadelphia, former chief operating officer for Philagrafika, former chair of the Philadelphia Art Commission, onetime adjunct instructor at Drexel University, independent curator, artist, mentor, Mummers Parade judge, and much more, died suddenly Sunday, Aug. 2, at her home. The exact cause of her death has not been determined.
Born and reared in Ridley Park, Delaware County, Ms. Jacobson became interested in art education, administration, and conservation at Trinity Washington College in Washington in the 1960s. She settled in South Philadelphia after college in the 1970s and spent the next 50 years organizing, promoting, and inspiring local artists and art organizations.
“Philadelphia richly deserves to be known as a place that honors its own,” she told The Inquirer in 2006.
She joined Fleisher in 1972, rose to CEO in 1983, and left in 2006 to work over the next two decades at Philagrafika, Mural Arts Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and elsewhere. During her 34 years at Fleisher, she developed its Center for Works on Paper, the Community Partnerships in the Arts program, and the Challenge series juried competition.
She also oversaw three capital campaigns and told The Inquirer that her priority was “seeing connections and possibilities between and among artists, institutions, and their constituencies.” A colleague said on Facebook: “To many of us she was Fleisher.”
John Ittmann, former curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, told The Inquirer in 2006: “Thora is a real firecracker. She has a wonderful type of energy that is really infectious.”
Ms. Jacobson was also chair of the Philadelphia Art Commission for a decade, interim director of operations for the Asian Arts Initiative, vice president of the Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, trustee of the National Guild of Community Arts Education,member of the American Swedish Historical Museum,and, most recently, a visual arts management consultant.
Ms. Jacobson and fellow curator Warren Angle admire an exhibition at the Fleisher Art Memorial in 2002. April Saul / Staff Photographer
“Thora was kind and clear,” colleagues at Social Impact Studios said on Facebook, “but firm as she pushed us to keep tweaking things until they were as strong as they could be.”
She was an adjunct instructor at Drexel University from 2010 to 2014 and led research projects at Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania on social impacts of art in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Her first job out of college was coordinator of the student center at the Art Museum.
She curated and juried shows, and wrote forwards and essays for art books and catalogs. She drew in her spare time and judged the Mummers Parade for years.
She was featured in The Inquirer and Daily News, and appeared in the 1992 TV art documentary Monuments in Love. In 2006, she earned the Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art and Design, and was honored for lifetime achievement by Tri-State Artists Equity.
Ms. Jacobson, standing between Jim Straw, to the left, and Ralph Wellington to her right, earned the Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art & Design in 2006.Gary Horn Photography
“She’s really respected throughout the arts community in Philadelphia,” Happy Fernandez, then president of Moore, said in 2006. Anne d’Harnoncourt, then director of the Art Museum, said Ms. Jacobson’s “impact has been enormous.”
William Valerio, director and CEO of the Woodmere museum, said: “Thora was a towering figure in the arts of Philadelphia, a builder of institutions whose accomplishments are lasting.”
Thora Elizabeth Jacobson was born Feb. 19, 1949, in Ridley Park. She was the youngest of three children; her father died when she was 3. She played field hockey in high school, was fascinated by words and language, and graduated from the old Holy Child Academy in Sharon Hill.
She met her husband, Antonio Sorgini, when he was taking classes at Fleisher, and they married in 1980 and had a son, Antongiulio. Her husband died in May.
Ms. Jacobson, her husband, Antonio Sorgini, and their son, Antongiulio, lived in South Philadelphia.Courtesy of the family
Ms. Jacobson was a talented seamstress and baker. She did humorous impersonations, collected art, and enjoyed working with young people.
Friends noted her “many kindnesses” and “decades-long advocacy for artists and the cultural community” in online tributes. Woodmere’s Valerio said: “She was both a strong voice and a warm friend to many.”
Her son said: “She had a sharp wit and relished cheerful banter among friends and colleagues. Above all, she took the work of mentorship very seriously.”
In addition to her son, Ms. Jacobson is survived by a sister and other relatives. A brother died earlier.
Friends noted Ms. Jacobson’s “many kindnesses” and “decades-long advocacy for artists and the cultural community.”Courtesy of the family
A celebration of her life is to be held later.
Donations in her name may be made to the Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catharine St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147; and Mural Arts Philadelphia, 1727-29 Mount Vernon St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19130.
Ms. Jacobson was a talented seamstress and baker. Mark Garvin, / Philadelphia Museum of Art
SEPTA said a production company is making a TV docuseries for A&E on the work of the transit police, shadowing officers in Philadelphia as they patrol trains, buses, and streets.
An email was sent to SEPTA employees last week explaining what’s behind filming they might see on the system.
The documentary will ”offer viewers a unique perspective of SEPTA law enforcement, allowing the audience to get to know some of the men and women of SEPTA’s 200-plus strong police force,” the internal message said.
Screenshot of a post on X of an internal email sent to SEPTA employees about the A&E documentary.X.com
The production company has editorial control but has SEPTA’s permission to embed with police units. The transportation authority says it is not receiving any compensation from the production.
SEPTA senior press officer John Golden said the eventual series will not be so-called reality TV.
“There is nothing scripted about this,” he said, and the action as crews follow officers is not staged. It also is not focused only on arrests or confrontations.
Alastair Cook, cofounder and owner of Double Act Productions, emailed that he was traveling and not able to immediately discuss the show.
The company, headquartered in the Brixton district of London, has produced dozens of documentaries and fact-based dramas for outlets like A&E, the BBC, National Geographic, and Discovery+.
A representative for A&E Global Media did not respond to a request for comment.
