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Convicted or accused: Waypoints on the city's trail of tears

Some other youths accused of or convicted of murder in recent high-profile cases include: * Eric Smith: In one of the most senseless, cold-blooded shootings in the city, Smith, then 16, fatally shot another 16-year-old, Luis Navarro III, in the back in Tacony Creek Park on July 28, 2007, because Smith wanted the other teen's new motorbike. He did not know Navarro.

Nashir Fisher (left) and Ameer Best (right) with Best's attorney, Richard Brown, during trial in subway-beating death of Sean Conroy.
Nashir Fisher (left) and Ameer Best (right) with Best's attorney, Richard Brown, during trial in subway-beating death of Sean Conroy.Read moreALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff photographer

Some other youths accused of or convicted of murder in recent high-profile cases include:

* Eric Smith: In one of the most senseless, cold-blooded shootings in the city, Smith, then 16, fatally shot another 16-year-old, Luis Navarro III, in the back in Tacony Creek Park on July 28, 2007, because Smith wanted the other teen's new motorbike. He did not know Navarro.

Smith is now behind bars at the State Correctional Institution-Pine Grove on a life sentence after being convicted of first-degree murder. His attorney is appealing his convictions in state Superior Court.

* David Ramirez, 18, faces a murder trial in the 2008 shooting death of Mark Anthony Rivera, 16. The North Philadelphia shooting allegedly occurred because Ramirez thought Rivera, whom he did not know, had given him a dirty look.

Ramirez's father, Teddy, is in prison after having been convicted of first-degree murder for a 2007 shooting.

* Gary Autrey was only 15 when he allegedly shot to death Korean War veteran Enor Raymond Williams, 78, during a robbery outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Strawberry Mansion on Aug. 29, 2008.

Autrey faces trial Feb. 4 on first-degree murder and related charges. Two other teens, Karl Jarmon and Terrell Bennett, both 18 at the time, face trial the same day on charges of second-degree murder and related offenses.

* Marcquis Walker-Williams was 17 when he put a 69-year-old man in a choke-hold and slammed him onto a sidewalk in Oxford Circle on July 10, 2007. Victim Kwok Wai Ho had been taking his after-dinner stroll. He died a week later after his family took him off life-support.

A jury in August convicted Walker-Williams of third-degree murder. He is to be sentenced Oct. 16.

* The five teens who jumped Starbucks manager Sean Patrick Conroy on March 26, 2008, in the underground subway concourse near 13th and Market streets, triggering a fatal asthma attack, face sentencing later this year.

Arthur Alston, 18, who admitted to being the first person to punch Conroy, 36, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and conspiracy two weeks before trial.

Rasheem Bell, 18, pleaded guilty in February to the same charges and cooperated with the prosecution during the August trial of the three remaining teens.

A jury convicted Ameer Best, 18, and Nashir Fisher, 17, of third-degree murder and conspiracy. It convicted Kinta Stanton, 17, of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy to commit third-degree murder.

- Julie Shaw