Jury hears testimony of Loomis guards' widows

The widows of two Loomis armored-van guards killed in 2007 as they serviced a Northeast Philadelphia ATM gave a Philadelphia jury brief, mournful, and mute testimony of their loss yesterday.

For Donna Alullo, it was a final memory of her husband, Joseph, 54, waking her at 4:45 a.m. Oct. 4, 2007, as he rummaged about for clean clothes for work.

They talked briefly about the day to come, Alullo told the Common Pleas Court jury.

"He kissed me on the head and said, 'I love you,' " Alullo said.

For Joyce Widmaier, the shooting of her husband, William, 65, was painful beyond words. Widmaier stood in the courtroom audience, silent, as Assistant District Attorney Michael Barry read a statement about the man she met when she was 15 and he a year older, their adult son and daughter, and her last glimpse of him as he left for work that day at 5:15 a.m.

Widmaier began weeping and left the courtroom as soon as Barry finished.

Both women's testimony came in their roles as "life in being" witnesses, a legal formality in murder cases to show that the victim was alive and healthy in the moments leading to death - in this case at the hands of Mustafa Ali, 38, on trial for his life in the Loomis robbery.

Their testimony followed the uninterrupted viewing of three security videos from early Oct. 4, 2007, showing the two guards and driver Joseph Walczak, 72, starting their day at a Northeast Philadelphia credit union and being shadowed by Ali in his black Acura TL luxury car.

Though the videos have been viewed in stills and slow-motion since the trial began Feb. 1, yesterday was the first time they were seen in quiet solemnity that actually befitted a funeral.

Barry said he would conclude his case when the trial resumes Friday at the Criminal Justice Center in Center City.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart canceled today's trial session because of the impending snowstorm. Yesterday, he was forced to add a second day off tomorrow after it became clear the storm might make it impossible for an out-of-state defense expert witness to get to Philadelphia by tomorrow.

Prosecution witnesses have testified that Ali, a convicted bank robber who spent most of the 1990s serving a federal prison term, spied the Loomis van as he drove toward his job in Trenton from his Woodhaven Road apartment.

Ali followed the van south and observed the crew working at a first stop at a credit union. Ali then followed the van a few blocks to a Wachovia Bank branch at Bustleton and Bleigh Avenues, at the Roosevelt Mall.

As Widmaier and Alullo worked on the outdoor ATM, footage from a security camera shows, Ali walked up and confronted the pair and then begin shooting. Widmaier fell to the street, rolling in pain, while Alullo and Ali disappeared from the frame.

Widmaier, of Fairless Hills, and Alullo, of Levittown, both retired city police officers, died at the scene. Ali returned into frame in the video as he grabbed the Loomis bag that contained deposit envelopes from the ATM - but little or no cash.