A family's heartache: her killer may be caught, but 'Baby J' is still gone

The week that Jayanna Powell was killed, her family tied pink and purple balloons to the front porch, her favorite colors.

They had just moved to a house on 57th Street. The front room was filled with posters and sympathy cards, and relatives wearing identical sweatshirts, the ones with Jayanna's photo on the front.

She was 8. On Nov. 18, she had been walking home from school at 63rd Street and Lansdowne Avenue, holding her brother's hand, when a driver in a silver Nissan hit her and drove off.

Ayeshia Poole and her husband, James Powell, have spent the last two weeks pleading for someone, anyone, to come forward with tips in the case. Wednesday night, the captain of the Accident Investigation District called. Police had made an arrest.

"It's a little relief," Poole said. "But it's not going to bring my daughter back."

Investigators found Paul Woodlyn III, 24, after an auto body shop owner in Chester County recognized a battered car at his shop as the silver Altima investigators were looking for. Woodlyn has been charged with an accident involving death or injury, vehicular homicide, and involuntary manslaughter.

"I just want to ask him why," Poole said. "Why did he hit her and just keep going? What was the rush?"

On Thursday afternoon, the remnants of the pink balloons were still wound around the porch railing of the house. In the front room, Poole and Powell sat together on camping chairs as relatives streamed in and out of the front door.

"This happens every day," Powell said. He is finding it easier to speak; at a news conference at Police Headquarters on Tuesday, he let Poole do most of the talking. He was too choked up.

They are worried about their surviving children, who all saw the crash. The Powell children were close. Jayanna played video games with her brothers and painted her sister's nails - pink and purple, of course. She baked cookies with her mom. "We're a team," she'd say.

"I'll always remember that," Poole said.

On Wednesday, for the first time, her younger brother spoke to his parents about the crash. He told them where he had been standing and where Jayanna had been standing before the car hit. He showed them how his sister had lain in the street.

In the weeks after Jayanna was killed, the reward for information in the case ballooned to $45,000, from Mayor Kenney's office, the Fraternal Order of Police, and Jayanna's uncle, who pledged $20,000. The family hoped it would entice a reluctant tipster.

"It's sad when you have to say money's involved for a community to come together and say, 'We know something,' " Poole said. Tuesday's news conference was hard, she said, "but I had to do it for my daughter."

On Wednesday, she was quiet. She had done what she had to do, and it worked. Woodlyn was being held on $500,000 bail. A court date was set for this month. Jayanna, who called herself "Baby J," who wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up, who sang and danced and held her brother's hand on the way home, is still gone.

"Right now, the focus is on making sure my three children are OK," Poole said. "Then, that the monster who hit my child gets what he deserves. Then, I can work on myself."

awhelan@philly.com

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@aubreyjwhelan