Jury: Killer of guards guilty of 1st degree murder

A Philadelphia jury today found Mustafa Ali, charged in the 2007 slayings of two Loomis armored van guards, guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree.

The 12 jurors delivered their verdict about 2:30 p.m. after deliberating for three hours.

Ali, 39, who served most of the 1990s in federal prison for bank robbery, was charged in the Oct. 4, 2007, killings of Loomis guards William Widmaier, 65, of Fairless Hills and Joseph Alullo, 54, of Levittown.

The jury found Ali not guilty of the attempted murder of Loomis driver Joseph Walczak, 72, of Frankford, who was injured by glass when a bullet hit the window of the armored van as the guards serviced an ATM in the Northeast.

By finding Ali guilty of first-degree murder the jury agreed with the prosecutors contention that the killings were premeditated, intentional and malicious.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Barry has said he will ask the jurors to sentence Ali to death by lethal injection.

The jury was given tomorrow off and will return Friday to begin the death penalty phase of the trial.

According to testimony at the trial, which began Feb. 1, Ali - born Shawn Steele - stalked the Loomis van for eight blocks and watched the crew work at a credit union before robbing them at an outdoor ATM at a Wachovia Bank branch at Bustleton and Bleigh Avenues at Roosevelt Mall.

Ali's defense team had argued that he was not guilty of first-degree murder. Rather, they say, Ali panicked when Alullo began to go for his weapon.

Prosecutor Barry maintained that Ali "ambushed" the Loomis crew because the ATM video shows him stride toward the crew and immediately begin firing.