SLAY CHARGES BEFUDDLE
Neighbors of accused killer stunned
IT'S HARD for some Northeast Philadelphians to jibe news accounts about accused cold-blooded armored-truck killer Mustafa Ali with the neighbor that they saw:
A good-looking and seemingly hardworking dad to three small kids.
"He's a really attractive man, and he has three beautiful kids," said Deborah Lewis, 37, a neighbor of Ali in the Franklin Square Townhomes on Woodhaven Road in the Far Northeast . "I'd see him come home from work with the kids, but he never spoke to me."
Lewis said she hasn't been able to sleep since Ali, 36, was arrested Saturday in the robbery and senseless slaying of two retired cops-turned-armored-car guards after they'd unloaded an ATM machine at a Roosevelt Mall bank.
It turned out that Ali had also managed to keep a secret from those neighbors - that he had a criminal past.
In 1993, when he was just 21 and known as Shawn Steele, he was charged with his older brother, Anthony, and another man with netting $25,515 from eight Philadelphia bank robberies. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years behind bars, but was released in 1999. He had faced a total of 147 years in jail for the crimes.
The double murder and robbery of the Loomis armored truck was national news - particularly because of the ruthlessness of the killer, who gunned down William Widmaier and Joe Alullo execution-style in a matter of seconds last Thursday.
Ali reportedly confessed to police and even showed the cops where he'd buried the murder weapon, in a nearby industrial park.
But anyone seeking insights into the mind of an accused killer would have been disappointed by a visit to Ali's sand-colored brick apartment on Woodhaven Road near Covert.
Neighbors who observed Ali - known before his imprisonment as Shawn Steele - said they are baffled by the robbery and murder.
Ironically, Ali has a sign pasted in his front window that proclaims, "Protected by Brinks Home Security."
Neighbors said Ali lived in the apartment with a woman who never left without wearing an Islamic head scarf.
They said the couple appeared to have three children under age 4.
And although Ali rarely spoke to these neighbors, they said he often returned to the apartment early in the evening, at the end of the workday, with the three kids in tow.
Police sources said Ali worked for a manufacturing firm in Trenton, and apparently also ran a janitorial service on the side.
They said business cards for Ali's janitorial business were found in his Acura that was recovered shortly after the slayings – along with cleaning supplies and an undetermined amount of cash.
More cash was found in his apartment, including hundreds of dollars in one-dollar bills and at least one dye pack that investigators said could be from a bank robbery.
Police also found paperwork that indicated Ali was trying to find work with the city as an electrician, sources said.
"Why did he do it? He didn't seem desperate for money. He worked," Lewis said.
"To kill two people and then come home and go to sleep – that's mental. That's really mental."
During his interrogation on Saturday, Ali allegedly told detectives where to find the murder weapon.
Police recovered the pistol near an industrial park in the far Northeast, where Ali buried the gun in a small hole and then covered it with a stone, sources said.
He dumped the gloves he used in the double slaying down a sewer, sources said. *
Staff writer Will Bunch contributed to this report.
