Four takeaways from the ‘Predator in Blue’ investigation into homicide detective Philip Nordo

Philip Nordo was considered a star detective in the Philadelphia Police Department’s homicide unit. Working independently and at odd hours, he obtained statements that helped convict more than 100 people over nine years in homicide.

Then, he was exposed as a serial predator.

» READ MORE: Predator in Blue: Philip Nordo was an esteemed homicide detective in 'the perfect place' to prey on incarcerated men

In December, Nordo was sentenced to 24½ to 49 years in prison for crimes including sexually assaulting informants. At least 13 convictions Nordo built have been thrown out in court, while dozens more remain under review.

To tell the full story, Inquirer reporters reviewed thousands of pages of police and court records, listened to dozens of recorded jail phone calls, and interviewed more than 50 police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, witnesses, defendants, and victims. Here are four key findings from the investigation, Predator in Blue:

The Police Department began investigating Nordo in 2017, prompted by defense lawyers who uncovered recorded jail phone calls showing that the detective had colluded with an informant to frame someone.

But Internal Affairs investigators soon found a complaint against Nordo dating to 2005, by a teenager who said the detective had molested him. The complaint was referred to the DA’s Office at the time, but prosecutors declined to bring charges.

Investigators also learned that the FBI already had compiled a list of more than a dozen prisoners who had made phone calls to Nordo. Much about the FBI’s discovery — including when agents learned of Nordo’s phone calls and what they did with that information — remains a mystery.

After Nordo was assigned to investigate the 2013 fatal shooting of 21-year-old Christian Massey in Overbrook, the detective enlisted a 22-year-old neighborhood man as a confidential informant. The informant gave Nordo the name of a possible suspect, Arkel Garcia. The informant also agreed to try to buy drugs from an alternate suspect, to lay groundwork for a search warrant.

The informant — who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation — said Nordo assured him that no one would ever know he was a snitch. But he said the detective failed to protect his identity, instead frequently showing up outside his house.

» READ MORE: The Inquirer partnered with Reveal to create a podcast about Nordo. Here's how to listen.

And one day, he said, he agreed to meet Nordo at a hotel. The informant said that after a drink, he blacked out, then woke up the next morning, naked. He later discovered he had chlamydia, and accused Nordo of raping him; he said the detective hit him and brandished his gun.

In the months that followed, the informant said, he was threatened and shot at by the drug dealers Nordo had sent him to buy from. Then, in May 2015, he encountered one of them outside his house.

Both men were armed. The informant pulled his gun and fatally shot the man.

The informant said that before he met the detective he had never felt the need to carry a gun. He is now incarcerated for manslaughter. The man the informant identified as Massey’s killer, Arkel Garcia, had his conviction overturned in 2021, after prosecutors acknowledged that the detective had sexually propositioned virtually everyone involved in the case.

On July 29, 2014, Nordo was away on vacation. But a witness he had cultivated, Kenneth Perry, had a remarkably busy day in Philadelphia’s criminal courthouse.

In the morning, Perry testified that Curtis Kingwood and Faheem Davis had robbed a dice game in West Philadelphia and fatally shot Christopher Lee. (Perry had not been able to describe the perpetrators the night of the crime, but when Nordo questioned him more than a year later, he picked them out of photo spreads.)

In the afternoon, Perry testified in a second trial. He said his cousin Joshua Raheem had shot three people in West Philadelphia, killing John Carrington.

All three defendants were ultimately convicted. Afterward, Nordo helped Perry and another eyewitness in the Lee killing get $20,000 each from a city reward fund. Perry would later say Nordo told him to keep it “low-key.”

Perry said in an interview that he never got a good look at the gunman in either case but that Nordo effectively bribed him to testify against Raheem.

Raheem’s conviction was overturned this year based on the undisclosed information about Perry. But he said the DA’s Office is seeking to retry him.

Kingwood and Davis are still in prison. Prosecutors now say there was extensive hidden evidence, and their continued incarceration is a “miscarriage of justice.”

After Nordo was benched in summer 2017, the homicide unit’s captain was transferred to another unit. And the task force Nordo served on — a squad assigned high-profile or complex cases — was disbanded.

Department officials now say they have protocols that would prevent the type of misconduct Nordo committed — including requiring investigators to video-record interrogations, telling witnesses their participation is voluntary, and limiting how long someone can be held for questioning.

But those policy changes were enacted in 2014 — three years before Nordo was benched.

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said detectives receive greater supervision now. But he couldn’t point to a single reform made specifically in response to Nordo’s wrongdoing, and he said the department has not undertaken any review of Nordo’s cases.