2 bodies found in Chester alley

A Chester city police officer and a Pennsylvania state trooper who work together on a program to get guns off Chester's streets were the first to arrive on the scene of a fatal double shooting Saturday night.

Responding to a call of shots fired around 10 p.m. near 6th and Lincoln streets, the officer and the trooper were directed by a civilian to W. Woodrow Street, an alleyway between 6th and 7th streets, police said.

There, authorities found the bodies of Natalie McCready, 32, and Richard Salters, 39, both of Chester.

Police said both had been shot, but Chester Cpl. Paul Battinieri declined to say where on their bodies they were hit or how many gunshot wounds each suffered.

Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

Battinieri said that the double shooting was not a murder-suicide and that robbery has been ruled out as a motive.

He declined to say if police believe that McCready and Salters were shot in the alley, which is open to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, or if the victims were killed at another location and their bodies dumped in the alleyway.

Authorities are awaiting the findings of the Delaware County Medical Examiner's Office before declaring the deaths murder.

But if both are determined to be murders, it would round out a bloody week for Chester, which saw two murders earlier in the week and 12 so far this year.

On Thursday, Michael Palmer, 50, was found shot to death on a sidewalk in the William Penn Development on Whittington Place near Union street. On Tuesday, Karim Alexander, 29, was shot to death on Patterson Street near Penn, a block away from an anti-violence basketball tournament.

City officers and state troopers often ride together in Chester as part of Operation Trigger Lock, a long-term program which uses aggressive traffic-enforcement to stop drivers. During the stops, authorities are often able to confiscate weapons or drugs from the vehicle or the occupants.

While a Trigger Lock trooper-officer team was first on the scene Saturday, state police are not expected to participate in the investigation, which is headed by the Chester Police and the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division, according to a news release. *