Philadelphia Police announced charges today in the deadly shooting of an area father that was allegedly shot over his backpack.
Police arrested Tyreek McNeil, 21, of the 600 block of Mifflin Street last weekend and charged him with murder, robbery, theft and weapons charges. He is being held without bail awaiting a preliminary hearing on Oct. 16.
Investigators say that McNeil shot and killed Jose Gabino-Aparicio as he walked along the 800 block of Watkins Street in South Philadelphia in the early hours of Sept. 26.
"The reality is that my husband will never walk through that door. Our youngest son will never know his father," said Gabino-Aparicio's wife Dionica Hernandez.
Hernandez says her 22-year-old husband was walking home from work with a friend when they stopped at his brother-in-law's bakery at 8th and Watkins Streets to get bread for the family's breakfast.
"He would always go by there to get us some bread so we would have enough food to eat," she told NBC10's Nefertiti Jaquez in Spanish.
As they left, the men were confronted by a man on a bike who demanded Gabino-Aparicio's backpack and cell phone.
The men got into a struggle and Gabino-Aparicio was shot three times in the back, according to police.
He was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Hernandez says she rushed to be at her husband's side, but didn't make it there before he died.
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Following the shooting, the suspect left the bike he was riding on. Police didn't say if evidence from that bike positively linked McNeil to the crime.
McNeil is no stranger to the law.
According to online court records, McNeil pleaded guilty to a weapons charge in 2010 and received two years probation as well as counseling and being ordered to obtain his GED.
