Chester residents applaud arrests in stray-bullet death

A crowd of nearly 100 outside the William Penn Homes in Chester burst into applause yesterday when police announced first-degree murder charges against two young men accused in the death of a woman struck by a stray bullet there.

Police said the men started a gunfight in the neighborhood Sunday trying to settle a score for an injured friend. The target fled. As the men continued to fire, a bullet pierced the thin walls of a second-story bedroom, burst through a headboard, and hit Kathy Stewart, 49, who was lying in bed. Stewart, a mother of three and grandmother of four, died early Tuesday.

Police yesterday arrested Dominique Smith, 19, of the 400 block of Gilbert Street in Trainer, and Abdul Azzia Johnson, 17, of the 1100 block of Curry Street in Chester, and charged them with criminal homicide; first-, second- and third-degree murder; and other crimes. The two were ordered held without bail at the Delaware County jail.

Although cameras at a church across the street from the home in the 300 block of Franklin Street gave police video footage, it was the coming forward of witnesses that allowed police to make arrests.

"Somebody stepped up so that another family does not have to go through this," Mayor Wendell Butler Jr. told the crowd in front of the home where Stewart was shot.

Stewart's sister, Sunday Hollman, 62, said she was surprised and ecstatic that police had made arrests so quickly. In a community besieged by gun violence, many murder and shooting cases remain unsolved.

"All the ones that have been shot and killed here, they haven't arrested anyone," she said. "I had no belief that they would try and catch them."

Stewart, a lifelong Chester resident who lived at the other end of the city, had been caring for her mother, Marietta Andrews, who has cancer. Yesterday, Andrews, 83, watched the news conference from an open second-floor window of her home.

Outside, officials told how they had made the arrests.

Police were called to the housing development at 8:43 p.m. Sunday after reports of gunshots.

Delaware County District Attorney G. Michael Green recounted how an officer, Steven Byrne, had found Stewart lying on her stomach in an upstairs bedroom. The bullet had blown through the wall and the headboard, striking Stewart on the top of her head. Her eyes were open, and she struggled to breathe.

Green also explained how a witness told police that he had heard two men laughing about Stewart's death.

People in the crowd gasped, and one of Stewart's nephews wept loudly and was taken inside the house. Upstairs, Stewart's mother covered her mouth with her hand as two younger women held her.

The witness identified the clothing the men had worn at the time of the shooting, the type of car Johnson had driven to the scene (a burgundy Mercury Grand Marquis), and the weapons used - a 9mm and a .40-caliber handgun, according to a police affidavit.

Smith told police that he had been at his girlfriend's house at the time of the shooting, according to the affidavit.

Johnson, who was brought into custody on a drug charge Tuesday, said he and Smith had been in the neighborhood and that someone had shot at them. He said it was Smith who had fired in the direction of Franklin Street, according to the affidavit.

Smith pleaded guilty to a felony weapons charge in August, and was sentenced to four to 23 months in prison.

Johnson briefly escaped police custody when he gained control of the van that had taken him to jail, Assistant District Attorney Michael Mattson said. The van was stopped at the jail's front gate when Johnson drove off. He was apprehended in Chester a short time later.