PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Murder charges have been upheld against one of the men accused of shooting and killing a Philadelphia police officer’s son in January. Investigators are now working to identify a second person of interest in the case.
A 35th District police officer identified one of the two suspects accused of killing 24-year-old Hyram Hill outside Maria Mini Mart, near the corner of North Broad Street and West Allegheny Avenue on Jan. 24.
In a preliminary hearing Wednesday, the officer told the judge he saw body-worn camera video of the suspect, who he identified as Levar Turner, 23. The officer said he told detectives in the Police Department’s Homicide Unit that he knew Turner from his work in the Northwest Task Force, which concentrates on violent crimes.
The defense questioned how well he knew Turner, asking him where Turner lived, grew up and went to school. The officer said he did not know any of those things.
Turner turned himself in to police in April.
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Prosecutors presented additional body-worn camera video that they say shows Turner getting into a car near 22nd Street and Lehigh Avenue in the early hours of Jan. 24 after talking to police about an unrelated domestic disturbance he wasn’t involved in.
They say that car then turns up at Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue, just half a block from the market where Hill was killed.
Surveillance video shows the victim standing at the market’s cashier. Prosecutors say Turner, identified by his distinctive blue-and-white coat, is shown blocking the victim from exiting the market. Then there is a flash from a gun.
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At that time, another man can be seen coming up from Allegheny Avenue, and he also fires at Hill. Though that man’s identity remains a mystery, investigators say they’re close to naming a person of interest.
Hill was shot six times in the torso before he died.
The judge upheld murder and gun charges, and Turner will now move on to the pre-trial phase in September, as investigators work to get the second shooter into custody.