The somber atmosphere was palpable Tuesday morning in Courtroom 306 as Cornelius Crawford sat through his preliminary hearing. The 23-year-old is charged in the carjacking of a white Toyota 4-Runner that resulted in the deaths of a mother and her three children.
Keisha Williams, 34, and her children, 7-year-old Terrance Moore, 10-year-old Joseph Reed, and 15-year-old Keiearra Williams were victims of the July 25 crash. All four were selling produce with the help of a neighbor on the northwest curb of Allegheny Avenue when the car struck them. The three children died from their injuries the day after the crash. Their mother died two weeks later. Williams has two surviving daughters who are living with relatives.
Crawford's hearing was held Tuesday at the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center in Center City. Co-defendant Jonathan Rosa, 19, waived his right to a hearing.
The owner of the carjacked 4-Runner that struck the victims said she was sexually assaulted, but withheld such information from homicide detectives out of shame. Once she realized what had happened, she gave a second, more detailed statement in the hopes that the suspects would be caught. During the hearing, the real estate agent shared her testimony, claiming one of the defendants tapped on her passenger-side window while another popped up at her door and jumped in the back.
"You want to live? Or you want to die?" the agent said she was asked by the first man, who pointed what looked like a gun.
The woman identified him in court as Crawford, and a judge upheld murder, sexual assault, carjacking and other charges.
The carjack victim was in North Philadelphia that morning to show a house about a mile north of Temple University. She had her 2005 Toyota 4Runner in park and unlocked.
The woman said she tried to drive off slowly, but Crawford punched her in the temple and ordered her to speed up. He repeatedly punched her with each command, she said.
"He just gave me orders, to make turns, or keep the speed," the woman said.
They briefly stopped in a desolate street, where she said she was forced into the sex acts before Crawford took the wheel.
"He was driving crazy," the woman said, sitting beside a Cantonese translator in case she needed help. "After not long, only a few minutes, I believe, it crashed."
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Crawford's lawyer, C.P. Mirarchi III, gently challenged the carjack victim in court, noting that she didn't tell police about the sexual assaults in her first statement, when she was hospitalized with bruises and broken bones.
"I (thought) they're never going to catch those two guys, and I (didn't) know what happened to the family. I just (kept) it to myself. I (felt) embarrassed," the 45-year-old woman said.
Witnesses at a nearby bus stop saw the mother and her youngest son flipped high into the air after the crash.
"The little boy, I knew, was dead already," said witness Renae Cureton, 55, who had just watched him make a sale, selling four-for-$1 bananas to a passing motorist.
"He was starting to learn how to earn a dollar, by selling fruit. His mother had him doing that," the boy's father, Terrance Moore, said Tuesday of his late son, Terrance Moore Jr. ""I want them to have the death penalty."
Other family members of the victims filled up the courtroom during the hearing. Tensions ran high when members began to verbally fight before the hearing; a bailiff broke up the quarrel before it became physical, asking that they take their personal problems home or to the streets. They declined to comment as to the reason behind the verbal altercation. Some order was restored when part of the group gathered together in prayer.
Violent sobbing could also be heard from family members as the assistant Philadelphia District Attorney Brendan O’Malley read the graphic medical examiner reports of the victims’ gruesome injuries. The witnesses brought by the plaintiff were also distraught over the crime.
Renee Cureton claims she had nightmares after witnessing the entire incident while waiting for a bus across the street. She didn’t know them, but recounted how one of the boys gave “a big ol’ smile” after selling some bananas, the first sale of the day.
Thelma Brown, 65, helped with the produce stand and gave testimony as well. As Keisha’s neighbor, she became close to the mother and her family over the four months that preceded the accident. She survived the crash, but suffered injuries that have kept her in a wheelchair ever since.
"I only moved an inch. I thought I moved faster," the 65-year-old Brown testified Tuesday from a wheelchair, still nursing a broken foot and ankle. "All I could see was the guys jumping out of the car, running ... and then this lady crawled out of the car."
Mirarchi claims his client feels remorse for what he has done and does not want to go to jail as a rapist.
Crawford had been out on parole for a few months, working odd jobs, after being incarcerated at age 16 for robbery. Relatives last month insisted that "he's not (a) monster."
Rosa, a high school graduate, planned to join the Marines. He met Crawford only days earlier.
Rosa's cellphone — which Crawford allegedly wrapped with a T-shirt to brandish as a gun — was found in the stolen SUV. That helped police make the arrests. Blood found on a T-shirt left at the scene also matches Crawford's, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The second-degree murder charges carry a maximum life sentence.
Crawford's trial is officially set for Nov. 13.
