A Philly woman who shot her boyfriend and left his body in a suitcase admitted to the killing, prosecutors say

On a rainy May morning, pedestrians and cars passed Liza Ridley on Kensington’s Allegheny Avenue as she stood with a suitcase by her side.

Those passersby, prosecutors said, were unaware that the decomposing and dismembered remains of Ridley’s longtime boyfriend, Vincent Good, were arranged inside.

Those horrific details emerged during Ridley’s preliminary hearing on Wednesday in Common Pleas Court, where prosecutors said Ridley, 54, admitted to shooting Good in the head and leaving his body in their Northeast Philadelphia apartment this spring before moving his remains using a Lyft rideshare.

Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope said Ridley shot Good, 53, seven times in the head and left his body on the couple’s mattress in their Mayfair apartment, sleeping next to the corpse as it decomposed in their room.

The body was likely there for two weeks or longer, prosecutors said. They also accused three people living in Ridley’s home of being complicit in the crime, saying it would have been impossible to ignore that something nefarious had happened to Good.

For example, Pope said, the smell of Good’s decomposition on bedsheets that had been thrown in the trash was so severe, homicide detectives could not bring them inside a police station for evidence processing.

And Pope presented Judge Gregory O. Yorgey-Girdy with additional evidence she said demonstrated Ridley’s culpability in the case.

That included surveillance footage captured at the intersection of Allegheny Avenue and F Street, where prosecutors said Ridley got out of a black Toyota and waited with Good’s remains while speaking on the phone.

She had traveled there using Lyft, accessing the rideshare app from an account registered to her daughter Liza Robinson, who lived with the couple, Pope said, citing cell phone data. Ridley eventually abandoned the suitcase in an alley a block away on E. Hilton Street and left in another rideshare.

The suitcase was discovered the next day by a passerby who alerted authorities.

“I opened it up, I think it’s a body,” the man told 911 operators on a recorded call played during the hearing. “Oh my God.”

Liza Ridley wore denim overalls over a white T-shirt as Pope presented those findings.

Prosecutors said Ridley, who was being paid by a contractor to be Good’s home health aide, told investigators that she and Good, who had struggled with alcoholism, had gotten into a fight in April that had turned physical before she shot him once.

Police recovered a six-shot revolver from her apartment, Pope said. Prosecutors say they will show that Ridley fired multiple times.

After hearing that evidence, Yorgey-Girdy held Ridley for trial on murder and nine additional charges including abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

Meanwhile, the remaining residents of Ridley’s apartment — Ridley’s sister, Bernadette Ridley, Robinson, and Robinson’s boyfriend, Gnaeus Daniels — appeared as co-defendants.

Pope said Bernadette Ridley, who had recently moved in with Liza Ridley after returning home from being incarcerated, helped her sister carry Good’s remains down a flight of stairs and load the suitcase into the Lyft.

When homicide detectives interviewed Bernadette Ridley, they testified, she initially denied knowing about Good’s corpse, saying Liza Ridley had told her the foul smell coming from her bedroom was from a nearby sewer.

After being presented with evidence of her involvement, Bernadette Ridley admitted to assisting her sister, prosecutors said.

“I know it’s over for me,” she told homicide detectives.

Yorgey-Girdy held Bernadette Ridley for trial on charges of obstructing the law, conspiracy, abuse of a corpse and related crimes.

But the judge said prosecutors had not presented enough evidence to charge Robinson and Daniels with conspiracy and tampering with evidence, and he dismissed those charges.

Good’s mother, Deborah Good, said in an interview after the hearing that she and other family members were pleased that Liza and Bernadette Ridley’s cases were moving forward, even if the cases against Robinson and Daniels did not stand.

“She did a good job on the case,” Good said of Pope.