2 charged in Korean War vet's slaying

Two men who police say were looking for an "easy target" to rob have been charged with last week's deadly shooting of a Korean War veteran outside the Strawberry Mansion VFW hall.

As it turned out, police said yesterday, 78-year-old Enor Raymond Williams was anything but an easy target. He put up a fight when three armed men - one of them aiming a .357-caliber gun to his head - demanded money, then pistol-whipped him on the evening of Aug. 29.

Williams, a retired city employee who lived on the 6300 block of North 11th Street in East Oak Lane, was shot in the face about 6 p.m. He died a short time later at Temple University Hospital.

The robbers fled empty-handed, Homicide Capt. James Clark said of a case he described as particularly sad and that prompted detectives to work relentlessly.

Terrell Bennett and Karl Jarmon, both 18 and friends who live in the 3100 block of Page Street, were arrested Thursday night and later charged with murder and robbery. Police said they were considering charges against a third suspect.

"Their goal was to find someone to rob. Unfortunately, they saw Mr. Williams, and they thought he was an easy target," Clark said. "They took the decedent, pushed him against the wall, took the gun and put it up to his head."

On the day he was killed, Williams had gone to the Capt. Robert Tresville VFW Post 6700, a three-story rowhouse on 33d Street near Diamond Street, to talk about volunteering.

He wasn't a member, and ended up talking with the post commander on the porch. About 6 p.m., however, the commander went inside to take a call, and Williams remained on the porch, talking to another veteran.

Clark said the suspects were on Diamond Street looking for vulnerable targets and went straight for Williams.

The other veteran, 72, got off the porch and was not harmed as events quickly unfolded, police said. Once Williams was shot in the face, the three men fled on nearby Fontain Street.

In the days following the shooting, police recovered the weapon.

Investigators declined to detail what led them to the gun, but Chief Inspector William Blackburn said ballistics positively linked the weapon to a projectile from the bullet that was recovered during an autopsy of the victim.

The members of the VFW post were shocked by the violence, the first of its kind since the chapter opened in 1960.

William Kelly, president of the Philadelphia Korean War Memorial that serves the region, said Williams' death was disturbing to other veterans.

"This was particularly shocking to all of us because he died in a way expected in a war, not on the street in Philadelphia," Kelly said.

Relatives and friends had described Williams, survived by a wife and three children, as a kind and religious man who also worked as a volunteer to help the homeless.

The retired supervisor in the city Streets Department was a member of Ward A.M.E. Church at 43d and Aspen Streets, where services will be held today.

Visitation starts at 9 a.m., followed by a funeral service at 11. Burial will be at Mount Peace Cemetery, 32d Street and Lehigh Avenue.