Inside 3 notorious local murder cases featured on Season 2 of ‘Philly Homicide’

The true crime spotlight will turn its attention to some of Philadelphia’s notorious killings with the Oxygen television series Philly Homicide, which returns for its second season this weekend.

With its debut in 2024, Philly Homicide recounted the stories of 10 killings that shocked the area. On Saturday at 8 p.m., it will begin another season covering 10 more high-profile local slayings using detective interviews and archival footage. Chris McMullin, a retired Bensalem detective, will return as host.

Philly Homicide will again delve into killings committed across a span of decades. Among them are the killings of a Center City businessman, a Delaware County metal musician and tattoo artist, and an Elkins Park teacher.

Here is how The Inquirer and Daily News covered three of the cases featured in the show’s second season:

Robert Chae began Jan. 9, 2009, like any other day. The owner of Penn Center Beauty Supply in the Suburban Station concourse, Chae, 58, opened the garage door of his Montgomery Township home in the predawn hours as he prepared to head to work.

But as the door opened, three men rushed in, committing what authorities would later call a “violent home invasion,” Inquirer reports from the time indicate. Chae was discovered dead hours later, beaten and bound with duct tape, his death caused by asphyxiation — though investigators initially believed he had been stabbed.

Chae’s wife, Janice, and their two adult children who lived in the home were also bound, but survived. Janice escaped after leading the assailants to a safe, fleeing to a neighbor’s house to contact police. The attackers, investigators later revealed, stole up to $20,000, plus jewelry and other personal effects.

Chae’s murder came as a shock to the region’s immigrant business owners. It came only a month after police arrested a group of men behind at least 10 robberies in Delaware County and Southwest Philadelphia that targeted Asian business owners whom they had followed home. And Chae was regarded as something of a trailblazer, having formerly served as president of the Pennsylvania Korean Beauty Supply Association.

But the biggest shock came when Chae’s 25-year-old nephew, Angelo “Lo” Shin, was arrested in the murder in February 2009. Shin, authorities said, was taken in by the Chae family after he had immigrated from South Korea, but went on to inform a group of associates that his uncle kept large amounts of money in the Chae home. The group cased the house and put together a plan to rob it — a job for which Shin received $2,000.

Shin ultimately pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and related charges, and was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison. Three others pleaded guilty to similar charges. Two more — Joseph “Spade” Page and Amatadi “Tadi” Latham, the main attackers — were convicted of second-degree murder in 2010.

“We all know who the real bad person is,” said Chae’s son, Richard, in 2010. ”He’s the person who started it. We believe that if it wasn’t for him, everything would be normal.”

The last time Keith Palumbo’s family saw him alive was Feb. 6, 2020, when he drove off from his Drexel Hill home in his mother’s silver Subaru. Two months later, on April 3 2020, police discovered his body in a crypt in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Southwest Philadelphia with a bullet wound to the head.

“That cemetery’s been rumored as a dumping ground for years,” Kevin Ryan, a private investigator hired by Palumbo’s family, said in 2020.

Palumbo, it turned out, wasn’t alone.

Investigators also found a body later identified as Delaware County’s David Rossillo Jr., who had been shot four times and had a rope tied around his neck. Both men, authorities found, were killed by members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club, an infamous biker gang.

Palumbo, 36, was known as a tattoo artist and musician in local metal bands, but family members said he was not a Warlocks member. He was, however, childhood friends with Michael DeLuca, a purported Warlocks associate also known as “Kaos.”

DeLuca, authorities said, called Palumbo to his apartment on the 7000 block of Woodland Avenue on the day of Palumbo’s disappearance. There, DeLuca shot Palumbo in the head, and directed two Warlocks associates — Billy Gibson and Buck Evans — to wrap him up in a carpet and destroy evidence.

The group disposed of Palumbo’s vehicle in Kensington, and used a truck owned by Donna Morelli to transport his body to Mount Moriah. Morelli lived across the street from the cemetery, and once served on the board of a nonprofit group started to preserve the property — but she was also, authorities said, a de facto Warlocks boss since 2015, when her husband, former club leader Eric Martinson, died.

DeLuca pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in January 2023, while Gibson, Evans, and Morelli pleaded guilty to lesser charges. No motive in Palumbo’s murder was corroborated, though authorities described him as a Warlocks prospect, and there were rumors he had broken “club rules,” reports from the time indicate.

Rossillo, the other man found in the crypt, was called a prospect. Another Warlocks member, Michael DiMauro, was convicted of Rossillo’s murder in 2023.

Rachel King, 35, was up early on the morning of April 11, 2023, to take her 11-year-old son, Jalen, to violin practice. On the way from their Elkins Park apartment, they stopped at a Dunkin’ drive-thru in East Cheltenham just before 7:30 a.m.

A gunman approached King’s vehicle and fired six shots into the driver side window, striking her multiple times. Her son was unharmed. King died at the scene.

King’s family and friends described her as a well-liked history teacher at Grover Cleveland Mastery Charter School in Tioga. King’s brother Matt King called her death a “heinous” act, and those close to her could not fathom why someone would want to harm her.

Two weeks after King’s murder, police charged Julie Jean and Zakkee Steven Alhakim with first-degree murder and conspiracy. Then, a case in which authorities said a jilted woman had hired a hitman to eliminate a romantic rival began to unravel.

King had been in a long-term relationship with William Hayes, who in 2022 started a brief fling with Jean, according to Inquirer reports. Hayes later cut off his relationship with Jean and got engaged to King, prompting Jean to begin a harassment campaign against the couple.

Hayes received a protection-from-abuse order against Jean in late 2022. Two months later, authorities said, Jean began speaking to Alhakim, who is a relative of her children’s father, and started hatching a plan to have King killed.

Jean, authorities said, purchased a vehicle for Alhakim, as well as an untraceable ghost gun. Alhakim, investigators said, had used both in a killing in Philadelphia just days before he assassinated King in Cheltenham, noting that fired cartridge casings from both murders were tied to the same weapon.

A Philadelphia jury in 2024 convicted Jean and Alhakim of first-degree murder and conspiracy after 45 minutes of deliberation. They were sentenced to life in prison in front of King’s family, who were clad in orange clothing, King’s favorite color. King’s older sister, Ahyana, said she was happy for her nephew, Jalen.

“I get to hug him and tell him that the people who murdered his mother in cold blood were held accountable and will never get out of prison,” Ahyana King said. “That will be the greatest thing.”