NORRISTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — A Montgomery County jury has found two men guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy in what prosecutors described as a murder-for-hire plot.
The jury took about five hours over two days of deliberations to find both Ricky Vance, 54, and Chong Ling Dan, 50, guilty in the shooting death of Ebony Pack in November 2020.
Pack was shot and killed while stopped at a red light in Lansdale, two days after Thanksgiving in 2020. When her body was found, still in the driver's seat with the car's engine running, the car was riddled with bullet holes.
A car that can be seen on surveillance video, pulling up next to Pack's car and then driving off while her car drifts through the intersection and hits a pole, was traced back to Vance. But Dan wasn’t charged until more than a year after the shooting.
“This is a very complicated case. And it was a long case,” said prosecutor Brianna Ringwood.
“There was no connection between Ricky Vance and Ebony Pack. There was no motive for him to commit this execution, apart from Chong Ling Dan.”
Prosecutors argued Dan set the shooting in motion with a “well-orchestrated, well-concealed plan,” hiring Vance and another man to kill Pack. They said Vance was the driver, and the third man, Terrence Marche, fired the shots from the passenger seat.
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“Ebony Pack was collateral damage in Chong Ling Dan's mission to seek revenge and retribution on his ex-girlfriend,” said prosecutor Brianna Ringwood.
That ex-girlfriend, Jasmine Stokes, was dating Pack at the time of her murder. Prosecutors said he used Pack to get back at Stokes because she refused to return $9,000 he’d given her.
Marche is also charged, but he has been missing since he went to Honduras in the months after the shooting.
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Co-prosecutor Lindsey Mills said cell phone data was key to the case, even in the months after the killing.
“You would basically have an event in the investigation, and you could watch the cellphones kind of react to that,” Mills said.
Lawyers for Dan and Vance argued the lack of evidence against the two men was “a disgrace,” and called the case “nonsense,” but the jury did not buy it.
Their verdicts came on what would have been Pack's 32nd birthday. Her friends and family, who had packed the courtroom through the five-day trial, rejoiced as the verdicts were read aloud.
“It was very powerful to get that verdict, and on a day that is so important to them,” said prosecutor Lindsey Mills. “I think they all just feel a tiny bit of closure and peace for her.”
Neither Vance nor Dan showed any reaction.
Both men face a mandatory life sentence. Sentencing will be determined at a later date.
The verdict came down more quickly than some expected. A juror was dismissed on Friday after she told a court official she did not understand some of the testimony over the course of the trial because of an apparent language barrier.
The jury was sent home Friday after about four hours of deliberation. She was replaced with an alternate juror when they returned on Monday morning. And the verdict came about an hour later.
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