Two people were killed in domestic homicides in Philly this weekend, police say

Two people were killed over the weekend in acts of domestic violence, according to Philadelphia police, part of a three-day stretch in which at least 16 people were shot and four people were stabbed across the city.

Those who were wounded or killed between Friday and Sunday ranged in age from 5 to 70, police said, and incidents were reported in places as varied as a street in the far Northeast, a Kensington Rite Aid, a West Philadelphia corner store, and inside a city jail.

Police did not release substantive details about many of the crimes, including the two they believe were motivated by domestic disputes. Domestic slayings have been rising in Philadelphia as gun violence has spiked: Though arguments and drug-related killings have long been the predominant motives in homicides, investigators believe domestic violence was the motive in about a third of the crimes in which women were slain in 2021 and 2022.

Two other incidents this weekend also involved violence between family members, police said: The 70-year-old man who was critically wounded was stabbed in the neck inside his North Philadelphia home by a 32-year-old whom the victim described as his son, according to Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore. And early Monday morning, a 26-year-old woman was found dead in a North Philadelphia residence after an altercation with her brother. That incident was initially reported by police as a homicide, but Vanore said Monday that the timing between the fight and the woman’s death was unclear and that investigators were awaiting a cause of death to help them figure out what happened.

The weekend’s first domestic homicide happened Friday around 10:30 p.m., when a 34-year-old woman was fatally stabbed inside a Rite Aid on the 200 block of West Lehigh Avenue in Kensington. The victim — whom police did not name — was taken to Temple University Hospital by medics, where she was pronounced dead.

Responding officers found a knife on the scene and arrested a 41-year-old man who was there. Vanore said the killing involved a domestic dispute, but he did not elaborate.

On Sunday, around 11:30 a.m., police said, another domestic argument led to violence when a 24-year-old woman shot Christopher Crump, 30, inside a house on the 2100 block of North 21st Street. Responding officers found Crump in a rear first-floor bedroom, then took him to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities did not name the woman but said she was expected to be charged.

Crump’s mother, Tanya Crump, said in an interview that her son was a loving father of three girls, ages 14, 12, and 5. He was a quiet person, she said, who enjoyed rapping and seeing his family, including his three siblings.

“I miss my son,” Tanya Crump said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get over this.”

Elsewhere over the weekend, a 5-year-old boy was shot in the left elbow Saturday night on the 12000 block of Verda Street in Northeast Philadelphia. Police said the boy was with his 35-year-old father and as the two were walking back to their home, two masked men approached them and told them in Spanish not to move. The father then reached for a gun he legally possessed, police said, and the suspects began shooting, then fled.

And on Sunday night in the Riverside Correctional Facility, police said, a 17-year-old male was stabbed nine times, then hospitalized in stable condition. Police said no one had been arrested.

Through Sunday night, police statistics show, 41 people have been slain in homicides in the city in 2023 — a slight decrease from the record-setting pace of the last two years, but still higher than other years in recent memory. An additional 131 people have been injured in shootings this year, police statistics show.