A woman was found dead — and naked — inside her bedroom in her West Philadelphia home overnight Wednesday.
Police received a 911 call from a 57-year-old woman around 3:45 a.m. claiming that three masked men entered the house at 53rd and Market streets.
The caller said both she and her roommate had been attacked, according to police.
When they arrived at the home police discovered the 62-year-old woman, who family identifies as Saundra Barley, dead in her bedroom. She was naked and badly bruised, authorities said.
Her roommate had minor bumps and bruises.
No signs of forced entry were found and nothing in the home appeared to be disrupted, according to police, who said they are questioning the roommate.
The victim's family said they have called police several times to report repeated abuse inflicted on Barley.
The man accused of abducting a Philadelphia woman seen on surveillance video putting up a fight while being grabbed off the street has been indicted on a federal kidnapping charge.
Delvin Barnes, 37, was indicted Thursday and is in federal custody in Philadelphia. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.
A bail hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The FBI says Barnes grabbed 22-year-old Carlesha Freeland-Gaither off a Philadelphia street on Nov. 2 and forced the screaming, struggling woman into his car. Federal agents found them three days later in Maryland.
Prosecutors initially charged Barnes the day after his capture. Under federal law, most cases can't be prosecuted without a grand jury indictment.
Barnes is also a suspect in the abduction and rape of a 16-year-old girl in Virginia.
A golden retriever dressed in Eagles attire stands next to a flyer of a lost dog, promising a $3,000 reward. "HELP ME FIND LOUIE!" reads the speech bubble next to the dog. This is the ad that flashed on Lincoln Financial Field’s Jumbotron at Monday night’s Eagles vs Panthers game.
The ad is the latest example of how the City of Brother Love has rallied behind Colorado native JJ Pearce to find her lost dog Louie who went missing over a month ago in the parking lot of a Home Depot.
Ironically, JJ made a quick run inside to get a set of keys for a dog sitter. She left Louie in the car, and, approximately seven minutes later, she came out to find that her red Honda CRV and the dog inside were no longer where she had left them.
JJ, friends and even complete strangers have spent the last month trying to spread the word about Louie's plight, in hopes of finding him.
"Thanks to the creativity of some friends, my Louie has found his way to the big screen at the Eagles game! I may not be an Eagles fan now, but if this helps Louie come home I will be rocking a jersey in no time! Keep spreading the word," she wrote on the "Help Louie Get Home" Facebook page which has almost 14,000 likes.
The creative publicity was done on the fly, according to dedicated member of the search, Nicole Papadier. She created the photo before the game started with her retriever Bailey. It was tweeted from Louie's Twitter account by another member with the hashtag #FlyEaglesFly. The photo made its way PhiladelphiaEagles.com and FlyEaglesFly.com, finally ending up on the big screen with other fan photos.
The Eagles operate with a social media aggregator known as Tagboard which allows them to filter social media results and quickly find certain hashtags. Photos then go through an approval process with the social media team. Thanks to the proper hashtag, Nicole's ad played on the screen during pregame. However, she refuses to take all the credit.
"It really has been a team effort, there's a lot of people involved in finding the dog. We've been meeting practically every weekend since he's been missing, leading church efforts, hanging up photos, trying really to get the news to continue to run the story" she says.
"As far as physically helping, there have been hundreds of people giving up their time from Philadelphia,” she says. She’s also had friends drive up from D.C. and received phone calls from Florida all the way to California. "It seems like people nationwide are checking their local shelters and spreading the word to any family members that might be on the east coast."
Sadly, not much progress has been made with the search. JJ knows Louie was let out of the car somewhere between the Home Depot and North Philadelphia where the empty vehicle was found.
While he is microchipped, Louie cannot be tracked unless he is found and scanned by a vet who knows to do so. Right now, he is registered as stolen.
Louie is a black lab mix with a white patch on his chest. Anyone with information is asked to call 970-203-4707. The $3,000 reward is offered, no questions asked.
A car struck a SEPTA police officer patrolling by bike in the Olney section of Philadelphia Thursday afternoon.
Witnesses said the car kept going after striking the officer at Old York Road and Tabor roads around 2:45 p.m., dragging the bike underneath for blocks.
According to SEPTA, the car was near the Olney Transportation Center. It wasn't immediately clear why the bike officer tried to stop the driver.
The officer is a member of a SEPTA tactical team assigned to the area of Broad and Olney. He stopped the vehicle by stopping his bike in front of the car.
He the officer began to approach the driver's side door, the driver took off, according to SEPTA.
The officer jumped off the bike and got out of the way as the car sped off.
SEPTA said the officer wasn't seriously hurt. He pursued the car on foot, but the driver and three passengers got away on foot when Philadelphia Police officers approached the vehicle. The car dragged the bike to the 1400 block of Colwyn Street -- about three blocks away.
Surveillance video of the deadly carjacking at an upscale New Jersey mall last year appears to show the suspects had been plotting the ambush for days.
Attorney Bruce Nagel represents the widow of Dustin Friedland, who was killed in the carjacking outside The Mall at Short Hills on Dec. 15, and said the video released Thursday shows the alleged carjackers had ample opportunity to plan a crime that would turn deadly.
The video shows the suspects' vehicle shadowing an SUV three days before the deadly carjacking. Then on Dec. 15, the suspects' vehicle parked close to another SUV, entered the garage where the attack on Friedland occurred, then left about 13 minutes later with Friedland's silver Range Rover.
"There's not a single security officer, not a single policeman that ever sees them or confronts them on two separate days," Nagel said.
The attorney is representing Jamie Schare Friedland, who was not harmed in the attack. The carjackers confronted the couple and Dustin Friedland, a 30-year-old lawyer from Hoboken, was shot in the head.
The assailants drove off in the Range Rover, which was found the next morning in Newark, about 10 miles from Short Hills. Prosecutors have said the couple was targeted solely because of the make of their vehicle.
Schare Friedland filed a wrongful death lawsuit earlier this year, seeking unspecified damages. The suit claims the mall owners reduced security to increase profits and first responders mishandled a call for help, allegations those parties deny.
Nagel said the owner of the mall, the Taubman Company, resisted his effort to make the video public, a battle he won in court last week.
"They don't want the public to know that their security that night was grossly inadequate," said Nagel.
There was no comment from the Taubman Company Thursday, but some shoppers told NBC 4 New York they have seen more security since then.
Jill Carnavale said she's been "more cautious" since the carjacking.
Hanif Thompson, of Irvington, and Newark residents Karif Ford, Basim Henry and Kevin Roberts have pleaded not guilty to felony murder and other charges.
State health officials warned residents in a Delaware community to be aware of a group of potentially rabid cats in their neighborhood.
Delaware's Division of Public Health (DPH) warned residents in the Buckley subdivision of Bear that a 4-week-old kitten tested positive for rabies.
The rest of the litter died from rabies-like symptoms.
They were confined to an undisclosed private residence but were around adult cats -- part of a cat colony of more than 50 animals -- that spent times indoors and outdoors, according to DPH.
As of Thursday no humans were bitten or showed any symptoms of rabies.
Officials warned residents in the area of Calburn, Channing and Paxton streets to be specifically diligent in looking out for cats acting strangely. Rabies symptoms in cats include changes in behavior, “increased vocalization, loss of appetite, weakness, disorientation, paralysis, seizures and even sudden death,” according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The DPH suggested residents take steps including avoiding feeding stray animals, not handling bats, raccoon, skunks or foxes and immediately rinsing any animal bites with running tap water.
The owner of the cats surrendered them to Delaware Animal Care and Control. Since the owner couldn't produce proof of rabies vaccinations for most of the cats, those felines will need to be euthanized, said the DPH.
Anyone who suspects they may have come in contact with a rabid animal should contact the DPH Office of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at 888-295-5156.
New Jersey police officers feared for their lives when they opened fire on a suspect Thursday morning, according to investigators.
The deadly incident began after an adolescent inside a house near Wilson and Reservoir streets called 911 to report a home invasion, said Trenton Police Director Ernest Parrey Jr.
Two Trenton officers responding to the call suddenly came under fire while in their police cruiser.
The officers, fearing for their lives, fired back and struck the suspect, said Parrey.
The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Darnell Stafford, later died at the hospital.
Luckily Officers Robert Albanowski, a 14-year veteran for the force, and Marlon Parrot, a 13-year-year veteran, were wearing their bulletproof vests and they weren't seriously hurt.
Both officers were hit by flying shards of glass and were treated at a hospital.
"The officers are very, very fortunate to be alive," Trenton Councilman George Muschal told The Times of Trenton. "This individual fired right into the driver's side window where the officer was sitting or just getting out of the car."
New Jersey State Police will aid in the investigation.
An autumn snowstorm left a coating, or more, of snow on parts of the Philadelphia area Thursday night and at least dropped some flurries on much of the region.
Temperatures quickly dropped throughout the evening and by 9:30 were around freezing in Philadelphia bringing snow to the city.
After a fairly steady snowfall people in parts of Bucks and Chester County reported more than 2 inches of snow on the ground.
Snow also covered the ground in parts of Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia counties as well as places in South Jersey and Delaware as the cold temperatures and wet weather moved from west to east across the area.
A pedestrian suffered serious injuries after being struck by a car outside a Main Line high school Thursday evening.
The crash happened just after 5:15 along Montgomery Avenue near Church Road – that’s just out front of Lower Merion High School – in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
The victim – described by investigators as an unidentified adult – suffered critical injuries, according to Lower Merion Township Police.
The striking vehicle remained on the scene.
Police diverted traffic around the scene for hours as they investigated as wet, wintry weather fell.
No charges were immediately fired.
