Philadelphia man guilty of gunning down his mother’s ex-lover in Bucks County, jury says
Kahlill Brown, 34, faces life in prison.
A Philadelphia man was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday for gunning down his mother’s former lover outside his workplace in Langhorne three years ago.
Kahlill Saleem Brown, 34, was found guilty by a Bucks County jury in the 2020 killing, which left 52-year-old Christopher Wilson dead in the parking lot of the recycling facility where he worked.
Brown was charged in the crime last year, along with his mother, 56-year-old Joyce Brown-Rodriguez.
The jury deliberated for more than two hours Wednesday before delivering its verdict to Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey L. Finley. News of Brown’s conviction, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison, led a group of Wilson’s loved ones to embrace in the courtroom.
Brown’s conviction follows his mother’s admission that she enlisted him to kill Wilson, a father of nine, after he ended their two-year relationship and took up with another woman. Brown-Rodriguez pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and related charges in December. She is awaiting sentencing later this summer.
Police found Wilson dead outside of the Kuusakoski facility just before 6 a.m. on Dec. 10. Witnesses told investigators that a gunman approached Wilson as he was speaking to a coworker and shot him multiple times, continuing to fire even after he fell to the ground.
In the days leading up to the killing, prosecutors said, Wilson had stopped responding to Brown-Rodriguez’s repeated calls and was planning to tell her estranged husband that the two had been having an affair.
Brown-Rodriguez later asked one of her son’s friends about obtaining a firearm. And on the day before the shooting, she texted Brown, telling him “I need your help.”
Brown-Rodriguez testified against her son at trial, but she told the jury she had driven Brown to Wilson’s workplace on the morning of the shooting so he could talk to her ex-partner — not shoot him.
Prosecutors questioned the validity of that and other statements Brown-Rodriguez made under oath.
But Brown-Rodriguez’s testimony and cell phone records placed Brown in the vicinity of the murder, and prosecutors said that left little doubt about his guilt.
No sentencing date was scheduled yet for Brown.