Man pleads guilty in backpack robbery
Tyreek McNeil, 23, admitted killing a young father, who came here from Mexico, in South Philly in 2013.
A SOUTH PHILADELPHIA man pleaded guilty yesterday to third-degree murder, robbery and weapons offenses in the 2013 shooting death of a young father during a robbery over the victim's backpack.
Tyreek McNeil, 23, shot and killed Jose Gabino Aparicio-Jeranimo, 22, at 8th and Watkins streets in South Philadelphia, about 4 a.m. Sept. 26, 2013.
The victim had gotten off work at the Public House, a Center City bar, and had gone with a friend to the South Philly bakery where Aparicio-Jeranimo's brother, Samuel, worked.
It was when the victim and his friend, Melquidas Moreno Allende, then 21, and both from Mexico, were hanging outside near the bakery that McNeil came up on a bike, pointed a gun at them and demanded money.
Aparicio-Jeranimo refused to hand over his backpack and tried to flee, so McNeil shot him, according to a statement that one of McNeil's friends, Jahmir Carney, had given to police after the shooting. McNeil, of Mifflin Street near 6th, allegedly bragged to his friends about the shooting.
After the shooting, McNeil fled on his bike with the backpack. He also took Allende's money and cellphone, Assistant District Attorney Gwenn Cujdik said.
Aparicio-Jeranimo was here legally and had a green card, Cujdik said. "What I thought was the most heartbreaking," she said, "was here are people who came to the United States for a better life and they were robbed, and he [Aparicio-Jeranimo] was robbed over a backpack.
"They were such hard workers. Everyone had good things to say about both of them."
McNeil, who also pleaded guilty to robbery in Allende's case, is to be sentenced Aug. 5 by Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner.