Holiday brings 6 killings in region
Four were in Phila. Camden and Chester each had one.
The Memorial Day weekend started out deadly in Philadelphia, Camden and Chester, with six people killed in six separate shootings.
Four were slain in Philadelphia, including a man who was found wounded late Friday in a car in South Philadelphia. Three others were shot dead early yesterday.
A man was murdered in Chester during an apparent burglary, and another was killed on the streets of Camden.
No suspects were in custody last night in any of the homicides, investigators said.
In Chester, police were investigating the death of Rasheed Barrett, 27, who was found shot in the entryway of a house in the 700 block of West Fifth Street shortly after 11 p.m. Friday.
Alerted by a report of a burglary in progress, police said, they found the front storm door of the home shattered and several shell casings nearby.
Barrett, whose address was not reported, was taken to the Delaware County medical examiner's office for an autopsy. Police said last night that they were awaiting the results.
"There's always a concern when you have a holiday and warm weather, you run the risk of more incidents of violence," said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, whose investigators were looking for leads in the death of a man who was gunned down early yesterday when an argument turned violent.
The four deaths in Philadelphia brought the city's homicide toll through yesterday to 122. There were 163 murders as of May 25 last year.
The first of the four Philadelphia homicides was discovered at 10:31 p.m. Friday, when police found Oanh Na Lieu shot multiple times inside a BMW parked on the 2600 block of South Seventh Street in South Philadelphia.
Lieu, 22, of West Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:45 p.m.
By dawn yesterday, homicide detectives were investigating three more fatal shootings without any clear leads on suspects or motives.
Police responding to a 1:46 a.m. call found Donnell Murphy 28, shot several times in the 500 block of North 55th Street in West Philadelphia, Homicide Sgt. William Gallagher said.
Murphy, of West Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m. at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
At 2:50 a.m., police were called to the 1800 block of South Fifth Street in South Philadelphia and found Michael Fernandez shot several times.
Fernandez, 21, of South Philadelphia's Pennsport neighborhood, was pronounced dead at 3:03 a.m. at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Gallagher said.
About an hour and a half later, 32-year-old Len Coppock was found lying outside a vehicle at 19th and Dickinson Streets, also in South Philadelphia, by police responding to a call.
Coppock, of the Southwark section, was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:34 a.m. from gunshot wounds.
It was the same in the fatal Camden shooting - no motive or arrests.
Camden police identified the victim as Sherron Rolax, 28, of the city's Whitman Park neighborhood, said Laughlin, of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.
Rolax was shot shortly before 1 a.m. yesterday in the 1500 block of Louis Street after an argument with a group of males.
"Someone in the group shot him," Laughlin said. "We don't know what the argument was about."