Philly man whose murder conviction was overturned faces new murder charge: ‘We’ll fight this at trial,’ attorney says
A judge said Tuesday that there was enough evidence against Arkel Garcia — whose 2015 murder conviction was overturned five years ago — for the new murder case to proceed.
As David Weinkopff lay dying last year in his Northwest Philadelphia apartment after he was beaten with a metal pipe, prosecutors said Tuesday, a surveillance camera captured his final words.
He groaned, then cried out, “Ah, goddamn it!,” before his whimpers faded for good.
Prosecutors played the video Tuesday morning during a preliminary hearing for Arkel Garcia, who is charged with killing Weinkopff, 68, then stealing his possessions.
The footage also showed a man prosecutors identified as Garcia entering Weinkopff’s apartment just moments before loud thuds gave way to his pained groans. Garcia then left, carrying a box containing a pipe, prosecutors said.
Common Pleas Court Judge David Conroy ruled that the evidence against Garcia was strong enough for the case to proceed.
Garcia, 32, is facing a murder charge for the second time. In 2015, he was convicted of murder in the shooting death of 21-year-old Christian Massey. A jury found that he killed Massey in an alley off Lebanon Avenue and robbed him of his headphones in 2013.
But a judge overturned the conviction five years ago because of its connection to disgraced former homicide detective Philip Nordo.
Nordo, who served on the Philadelphia police force for two decades, was accused of raping and sexually assaulting witnesses he met on the job. In 2022, a jury convicted him of rape, sexual assault, official oppression, and related crimes, and a judge sentenced him to 24½ to 49 years in prison.
As Nordo’s case wove its way through the court system, prosecutors from District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office asked judges to throw out convictions in several cases Nordo had investigated, including Garcia’s.
Nordo, they said, had forced a false confession from Garcia. A judge overturned Garcia’s conviction, and prosecutors declined to retry him.
Garcia was still on parole last year when, authorities say, he went to Weinkopff’s Stenton Avenue apartment and beat him to death.
Police officers later found the pipe he used in the killing near train tracks behind the apartment complex, Detective Thorsten Lucke testified Tuesday. It had blood on it, he said.
After the hearing, Garcia’s attorney Douglas Dolfman called the murder case “weak.” Prosecutors, he said, “can’t show that he killed anyone.”
“We’ll fight this case at trial,” he said.
Assistant District Attorney Ed Jaramillo did not say how Garcia knew Weinkopff, and Dolfman said he did not know whether they had a relationship. Garcia’s mother, the lawyers said, lived in the same apartment building.
About two weeks after Weinkopff was killed, Florida authorities named Garcia a person of interest in the beating death of a man who was found inside a house that had been set ablaze.
The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office last year said an autopsy showed 51-year-old Antoine Daniels died of blunt force injuries and they believed his killer started a fire inside the Fort Pierce home to cover up the crime.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said Tuesday that Garcia remains a person of interest in the crime and that the agency was working with Philadelphia law enforcement.
Philadelphia prosecutors had also charged Garcia with aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a felon, and related crimes, saying he shot a 34-year-old man in the wrist in January during a confrontation in Germantown. Garcia was stabbed and shot in the incident, prosecutors said.
On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped those charges. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the case.