Mother and son charged in slaying of North Philly man in Langhorne
Christopher Wilson was reporting for work in December 2020 when a man opened fire on him in the parking lot.
A Cobbs Creek mother and son have been charged with the December 2020 slaying of Christopher Wilson, a North Philadelphia man who was shot dead while reporting to work at a Langhorne recycling plant.
Joyce Brown-Rodriguez, 55, and Kahlill Saleem Brown, 33, were charged with criminal homicide, criminal conspiracy, recklessly endangering another person, and related offenses, according to a release from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. They were arraigned on Friday evening and denied bail.
A grand jury recommended the charges based on Middletown Township Police Department detectives’ findings, cellphone records, and testimony from both defendants as well as Wilson’s co-workers, some of whom witnessed the Dec. 10, 2020, events.
Wilson was talking to a co-worker in the parking lot of Kuusakoski Recycling before the start of their shift when a man approached him and fired seven shots at the 52-year-old father of nine. The gunman fled in a sedan that workers had seen parked in the lot since earlier that morning. Wilson was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 6 a.m.
Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said at the time that the killing appeared to be targeted.
» READ MORE: Victim in Langhorne murder was a North Philly ‘working man’ targeted over an unknown personal issue, DA says
Investigators allege that the killing occurred after Wilson attempted to end his relationship with Brown-Rodriguez; according to her testimony, the two had been involved romantically since 2018.
In the days leading up to the slaying, Rodriguez-Brown placed numerous unanswered calls to Wilson, and the pair had an argument in the Kuusakoski Recycling parking lot in front of one of Wilson’s co-workers, authorities said. The same co-worker testified that Wilson said he was trying “to get Ms. Rodriguez-Brown to leave him alone,” according to the criminal complaint.
The complaint states that Brown-Rodriguez made a call to acquire a firearm on Dec. 8, 2020. On Dec. 9, Brown-Rodriguez sent a text message to her son Kahlill, saying, “Please call me. I really need your help.” According to call records, the mother and son spoke about 10 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. that evening.
The next morning, Brown’s cellphone records showed, he was in the immediate vicinity of the recycling plant at 5:10 a.m. Brown and his mother exchanged calls hours after the early-morning shooting and after detectives questioned Rodriguez-Brown later that afternoon.
When interviewed by detectives in February 2021, Brown denied knowing Wilson and said he had never heard of Langhorne, Levittown, Bristol, and Bensalem. Following the interview, he called his cell service provider and tried to obtain his location history for December 2020.
No lawyers were listed for Rodriguez-Brown or Brown as of Sunday afternoon. In addition to charges related to the slaying, both were charged with false swearing, accused of not testifying truthfully before the grand jury last month.