PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — City officials are asking the public’s help in bringing nine fugitives into custody, all wanted for separate murders.
One of them is Jahylin Melchur, who is wanted for the June murders of two gay men and the shooting of another man in May just outside of the city's Hunting Park neighborhood.
"We do have information that at least as of July of this year that he was in Philadelphia, possibly hiding or being concealed or hidden by family members," said Jeff Hojonowski, District Attorney Supervisor for the Philadelphia Police Department Homicide Unit. "I am not sure if he’s still in the area but people do know him. He was frequenting that area where that West Hunting Park Avenue rec center was."
Another fugitive is wanted in a killing involving the parents of another homicide victim.
According to Hojonowski, Michelle Wilson and her husband Evans Wilson were shot by Shariff Perry earlier this month in North Philadelphia along 24th Street, just north of Lehigh Avenue.
"This was targeted," he said. "The belief is that this was directly in retaliation, that both the female victim and the male surviving victim were both specifically targeted because their son had been recently arrested for the murder of this defendant’s brother."
The other fugitives include:
- Christopher Coward, wanted in the May shooting death of Kenneth Singleton inside an East Mount Airy bar,
- Isaac King-Payton, wanted in the 2024 fatal shooting of Tommere Coker-Ruffin in East Germantown;
- Jacque Houston, who police said shot his father to death in 2023, stemming from an argument between his parents that became a physical altercation with his father,
- Leshaun Spruell, wanted in the August killing of Paul Rice in the Allegheny section,
- Michael Reaves, wanted in the shooting death of Khalil Ford last September,
- Robert Laurie, wanted for the 2020 killing of Shamir Collier in Germantown,
- and Abdul Hines, suspect in the May death of a 19-year-old during a shootout at a house party near Temple University's campus.
Prosecutors and the police have urged all of the fugitives to turn themselves in. There is a $20,000 reward for information in all homicides leading to an arrest and conviction.
