2 men plead guilty in 2017 shooting death of community activist Winnie Harris

Two men charged in the fatal shooting of a West Philadelphia community activist in her Powelton home two years ago pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree murder and related offenses instead of facing a trial.

The victim, Winnie Harris, 65, was the acting executive director and longtime volunteer coordinator at UC Green, a nonprofit that plants and tends trees. She was found shot to death on Feb. 3, 2017, in a second-floor bedroom of her home on the 300 block of North Holly Street.

Nelson Giddings, now 41, and Isaiah Reels, now 32, both of Philadelphia, had planned to rob Harris’ next-door neighbor, Theodore Williams, who they thought had drugs and money at his house. Instead, Giddings went to the wrong house and shot Harris, evidence showed, while Reels acted as the lookout in a nearby alley.

Giddings on Friday told Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott that he was ready to go to trial. But he changed his mind after Reels on Monday first pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him.

Sobbing and leaning back in his wooden chair as the judge read over the charges, Giddings said on Monday that he wanted to plead guilty.

“I’m ready,” he said. “Yes, I am. I’m just hurting, ma’am.”

Both men pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, robbery, burglary, and conspiracy to commit burglary. Giddings also pleaded guilty to weapon-violations charges. Reels agreed to cooperate and testify against anyone else authorities may arrest in the case.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop charges of first- and second-degree murder against the defendants, which would have carried mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole.

Both men are scheduled to be sentenced June 21. Their plea deals do not include negotiated sentences.

Reels’ attorney, Gary Server, told the judge his client wanted to accept responsibility. Giddings’ attorney, Jason Kadish, declined to comment after his client’s hearing.

After the hearings, Philadelphia police and the U.S. Marshals Service arrested a third suspect in Harris’ murder: Laukesha McGruder, 38, of West Philadelphia, a friend of Giddings’ who authorities say planned the robbery of Harris’ neighbor with the two defendants and who had testified at their April 2018 preliminary hearing.

McGruder had been subpoenaed to come to the Stout Center for Criminal Justice on Monday as a prosecution witness for the men’s trial. Instead, after the plea hearings, McGruder, who was holding her baby son in the courthouse hallway, had to wait for her father to come to the courthouse to take the baby before authorities took her to Police Headquarters.

Assistant District Attorney Jason Grenell told reporters that an arrest warrant had been approved to charge her with murder, conspiracy, and robbery.

Earlier in court, Grenell told the judge that Giddings, Reels, and McGruder were in McGruder’s apartment on North Busti Street, less than a half-mile from Holly Street, sometime overnight on Feb. 1, 2017, when they agreed to rob the man who lived next to Harris. (McGruder had testified at the preliminary hearing that she knew Williams, whom she called “Teddy,” because they had a sexual relationship since she was 18.)

McGruder drove the two men toward Holly and parked nearby. Reels acted as a lookout in an alley. Giddings then went behind the houses and entered Harris’ second-floor bathroom window by using a crowbar, the prosecutor told the judge.

Harris screamed when she saw Giddings in her home. Giddings then shot her three times and fled without taking anything, Grenell said. A neighbor who heard the screaming called 911.

Back at the car, when asked what happened, Giddings told McGruder and Reels, “Better you don’t know,” according to the prosecutor.

Several days later, the three met again in McGruder’s apartment and Giddings told them he had gone to the wrong house and shot the woman inside.

Harris, who was involved over the years in planting hundreds, if not thousands, of trees as part of her work with UC Green, also was known for tending to the Holly Street Neighbors Community Garden, which she founded in 2005 on the block where she lived.

She had lived on the block for about 40 years, by herself in recent years.

In the months after Harris was killed, her close friends distributed and posted fliers with images of the two men seen in a nearby alleyway, hoping for someone who knew anything about them to call police.

Giddings, of West Stella Street in North Philadelphia, was charged in the case in October 2017, while he was jailed at the Delaware County prison on another burglary charge.

Reels, whose last known address was the unit block of North Edgewood Street in West Philadelphia, was arrested a month later at his girlfriend’s residence in Southwest Philadelphia by members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and police homicide detectives.

Harris’ daughter, Neche, who was in court for the plea hearings, said she was “glad that we’re moving forward.” She also thanked Homicide Detective Ed Tolliver for his persistence in pursuing the case as if the victim was his own mother.

“My mom was an amazing person,” she said. “They took something from all of us that can’t be replaced.”