Police probe possibility of serial killer

JERMAINE BURGESS, a repeat violent offender, was charged with two of Delaware County's most heinous slayings last year and remains on police radar for possible involvement in a third gruesome death.

Now, Philadelphia police say that Burgess, 37, is considered a "strong person of interest" in another brutal slaying.

Could Burgess be a serial killer who began preying on the region in 2001?

A federal cold-case grant has led police to investigate whether Burgess was involved in the fourth case, the 2001 death of Tara Izzo, who was raped, sodomized, stabbed and run over by a car in the city's Overbrook section.

Even if Burgess is convicted in only two of the cases, he fits the FBI's definition of a serial killer, which is defined by "the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender or offenders in separate events."

Eric Hickey, director of Alliant International University's Center for Forensic Studies and the author of "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," said that Burgess' history of violent crime - from stabbing a man in the eye when he was 19 to his alleged homicides - indicates that he would not have stopped killing had he not been arrested.

"Hopefully, he'll be locked away forever," he said.

The threat of the death penalty, which Burgess now faces in Delaware County, means little to repeat murderers, Hickey said.

"Most serial killers are psychopaths," he said. "So they're not deterred by fear of punishment."

The crimes Burgess has been charged with are particularly brutal, from the Oct. 27 killing of 81-year-old Ridley Township resident Marie Ott to the Nov. 10 home-invasion slaying of Hoa Pham and assault of his wife in their Upper Darby residence.

Ott, a handicapped widow, was tied up with her own bootlaces at her home and stabbed to death while a plastic bag covered her head, according to police.

Pham, 60, and his wife, 58, were bound with electrical cords from their house and beaten with a chisel. Burgess allegedly raped Pham's wife before murdering her husband, police said.

Burgess also remains a person of interest - but has not been charged - in the murder of 84-year-old Jane Morgan, of Upper Darby, who was beaten, sexually assaulted and left for dead in her bed at Long Lane Apartments in September, said Michael Chitwood, Upper Darby police superintendent.

But it was DNA evidence from Pham's murder and a federal grant allowing the city to revisit unsolved murder cases that tied Burgess to Izzo's case, Homicide Lt. Walter Bell said.

Burgess' DNA was run through the Combined DNA Index System and a hit came up on DNA evidence gathered from the scene of Izzo's murder, Bell said.

A source told the Daily News that Izzo, 30, of Drexel Hill, was raped, sodomized, stabbed numerous times and run over by a car about 2 a.m. in an alleyway near 61st Street and Columbia Avenue.

Bell confirmed the information, but declined to comment further because the case remains under investigation.

According to reports from the time, Izzo was a UPS supervisor in South Philadelphia and the mother of two daughters, ages 7 and 8. When reached by phone yesterday, her family declined to comment.

It was in Overbrook, about a half-mile away from the scene of Izzo's slaying, that Burgess was apprehended for what may finally be the last time.

Burgess, who has spent about a third of his life in prison on violent offenses, was out on parole for a gun case in which he carjacked Simone Guy, 42, and her cousin on Dec. 17 at 62nd Street and Lansdowne Avenue.

Guy said by phone yesterday that Burgess approached her from behind as she was getting into her car and held a knife to her stomach. Burgess got into the car as he demanded Guy's keys, not noticing that they were in the ignition or that Guy's cousin was in the passenger's seat, Guy said.

He then held the knife to her cousin's throat, demanding she get out of the vehicle, Guy said. The two then watched as Burgess took off in the minivan, only to plow into a traffic light a block away, then ram into a storefront, she said.

Even with the van's airbags deployed and smoke coming from the vehicle, Burgess managed to get out of the car and run with Guy's pocketbook under one arm and the knife in the other hand, she said.

A passing patrol car stopped and two officers wrestled Burgess to the ground, Guy said.

"He was throwing police around like rag dolls for a while," she said. "They couldn't get the cuffs on him and he was reaching for their guns."

As police wrestled Burgess, Guy called 9-1-1 for backup, she said.

A few days later, Guy said, she realized that the man had been charged with two murders.

With news that another slaying may be attributable to Burgess, Guy was in disbelief.

"He scares the bejesus out of me," she said. "I hate looking at that face because I can still see it with a knife in his hands.

"My God, me and my cousin, we are the only ones he left alive." *