The Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury of 10 women and 2 men deliberated for only three hours before returning its verdict in favor of Marcellus Jones.
It acquitted Jones of murder, conspiracy to commit robbery, robbery and two weapons counts.
"Thank you!" Jones yelled out when the panel announced its decision.
The verdict stunned the courtroom and members of Zabel's family fought back tears.
Jones, 37, known as "Ant North" - a conflation of his middle name, Anthony, and the section of the city where he was born and raised - has been serving a life sentence since being convicted of murder in 2012 in the Sept. 6, 2008, killing of Tyrek Taylor.
Prosecutors said Taylor was Jones' getaway driver in Zabel killing and Jones shot the 19-year-old because he was talking about Zabel's shooting and Jones feared he might go to police.
Jones, who testified Tuesday in his defense, denied involvement in Zabel's or Taylor's deaths.
Prosecutors said Jones came up behind Zabel and shot him at about 1:30 a.m. on June 15, 2008 as he walked home from his night-shift job at a Starbucks at Ninth and South Streets. Jones then stole Zabel's iPod, prosecutors said.
Zabel, 23, was found dead on the sidewalk in the 800 block of Ellsworth Street in South Philadelphia - a block from the apartment he moved into just six weeks earlier after arriving in the city from his native Austin, Minn.
Zabel moved to Philadelphia motivated by a desire to teach in urban schools and was to have begun a Drexel University teaching fellowship that October.
For almost five years after Zabel's slaying, which attracted national attention, the crime was considered a cold case because of the lack of DNA or other physical evidence linked to the killer.
A mother and her adult daughter who lived in a house where Zabel died on the sidewalk testified that they heard a "boom," looked out their windows and saw Zabel lying dead below and then watched a man searching around the body.
Neither woman could give a detailed description of the man or identify Jones. Neither could a man at Eighth Street and Passyunk Avenue, who said he heard a shot and saw a man dressed in a white T-shirt and dark pants walking from Ellsworth.
Police recovered grainy video from outside surveillance cameras at Capt. Jesse G's Crab Shack at 1101 S. Eighth St. and Authorized Motor Services at 1112 S. Eighth St.
One shot showed Zabel - identifiable by his fedora hat, backpack and khaki shorts - stop at the restaurant, buy a Mountain Dew soda from an outside soda machine, and walk off.
Other scenes show the man in a white T-shirt and dark slacks walking away from Eighth and Ellsworth seconds after Zabel was shot and killed and putting an object into an outdoor flower pot. The same man is also seen returning and retrieving an object from the flower pot and hide it under his shirt.
But it was only after Taylor was shot to death outside his South Philadelphia home on Sept. 6, 2008 that detectives began to get tips that Jones had told relatives and friends he killed Taylor to silence him because Taylor wouldn't stop talking about how Jones "killed the teacher."
Ultimately, the jury heard often reluctant testimony from Jones' sister and her longtime boyfriend and a childhood friend and fellow inmate with Jones in Graterford state prison - all confirming that Jones had admitted killing Taylor and, by extension, Zabel.
In his closing argument Tuesday, defense attorney Richard J. Giuliani urged the jury not to be swayed by sympathy over Zabel's slaying. Giuliani also attacked the credibility of the witnesses who testified about Jones' alleged admissions, whom he described as opportunists looking to get out of prison, accumulate good will with prosecutors or, in Jones' sister's case, regain custody of her children.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment