Speaker 1: They have a gang with Sippy's young kids. With that,
Speaker 1: I to seeing each other in the ninety nineties. The
Speaker 1: line between fox Chase and Abington wasn't just a municipal boundary.
Speaker 1: It was a dividing line between two worlds. On one side,
Speaker 1: you had Fox Chase, a tight knit neighborhood in northeast
Speaker 1: Philadelphia with row homes, Catholic parishes, and corner bars where
Speaker 1: everybody knew your uncle. On the other, Abington Township was
Speaker 1: a leafy stretch of Montgomery County suburbia with bigger houses,
Speaker 1: cleaner streets, and schools that seemed to have more funding
Speaker 1: and more rules. To kids growing up in fox Chase,
Speaker 1: Abington might as well have been a foreign country. The
Speaker 1: joke about how you could smell the suburbs as second
Speaker 1: you cross the city line at Cheltenham Avenue. But underneath
Speaker 1: the jokes was tension, the kind that could flare up
Speaker 1: at the back parking lot of the Willow Grove Mall,
Speaker 1: or after a Sunday night party when someone from the
Speaker 1: other side showed up uninvited. The rivalry wasn't just about territory.
Speaker 1: It was about pride, class, and reputation. Foxchase kids grew
Speaker 1: up with a certain edge. Most came from working class
Speaker 1: families where toughness was a virtue and loyalty wasn't optional.
Speaker 1: Many had older brothers who fought the same fights, hung
Speaker 1: out at the same pizza rays and playgrounds, and down
Speaker 1: stories about brawls in the Holy Redeemer parking lot. A
Speaker 1: lot of fox Chase was considered more middle class, but
Speaker 1: compared to Abington, even these parts were seen as rougher.
Speaker 1: Kids from Abington, especially those around Rosslyn and the High School,
Speaker 1: were seen by fox Chase tains as soft, more privileged,
Speaker 1: and more sheltered. But in Abington's eyes, the Foxchase crowd
Speaker 1: was wild, unpredictable, and always looking to prove something. It
Speaker 1: didn't take much to spark a fight. A sideways glance
Speaker 1: at a bus stop, somebody flirting with the wrong girl
Speaker 1: at a party, a shove in a skill hallway, or
Speaker 1: a rumor passed down through friends of friends. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: fights were planned somewhere impromptu, and then one winter night
Speaker 1: in ninety ninety four, something snapped. That night, a group
Speaker 1: of teenagers from Abington grammed into a car, gripping baseball
Speaker 1: bats with numb fingers and tight jaws. Their breath fogged
Speaker 1: up the windows as they drove into fox Chase. They
Speaker 1: weren't looking to talk. They were looking for blood. Eddie
Speaker 1: Pollock was a sixteen year old senior a Cardinal Dockerty
Speaker 1: High School in fox Chase. By all coins, he was
Speaker 1: the kind of kid that every parent hoped their child
Speaker 1: would be friends with, the kind of teenager who still
Speaker 1: said please and thank you, who showed up to Sunday
Speaker 1: Mass without complaint. He had come from a family steped
Speaker 1: in tradition. His father, John and older sister had both
Speaker 1: walked the same hallways at Dockerty. His younger brother, Billy,
Speaker 1: who was fourteen years old, had only just started as
Speaker 1: freshman year there. It was the kind of family where
Speaker 1: dinner was at the same time every night, and where
Speaker 1: sports weren't just played, they were earned. Eddie wasn't the
Speaker 1: kind of kid who coasted on natural talent. When he
Speaker 1: wanted to join the wrestling he didn't just show up.
Speaker 1: He trained. He filled plastic grocery bags with canned goods,
Speaker 1: and then ran laps around the neighborhood a church. He
Speaker 1: was an older boy with a sharp wit and a
Speaker 1: grin that made even the grumpiest parishioners laugh. During a
Speaker 1: service project delivering fruit baskets to the elderly, Eddie dropped
Speaker 1: a full container of strawberries into the church parking lot
Speaker 1: without missing a bait. He scooped them back up, brushed
Speaker 1: them off, and then turned to the priest with a
Speaker 1: grin and said, a little motor oil. Never heard anybody
Speaker 1: that was just Edie. Earnest, funny, and unpolished in all
Speaker 1: the right ways. He had a softness to him as well,
Speaker 1: especially when it came to animals. It wasn't uncommon for
Speaker 1: him to come home cradling a bird with a broken
Speaker 1: wing or leading a limping stray dog by the collar.
Speaker 1: He had a big heart that didn't know how to
Speaker 1: turn away from something that was in pain. Weekends were sacred,
Speaker 1: and not just for mass If you were looking for
Speaker 1: Eddie on a Saturday afternoon, you would probably find him
Speaker 1: at Foxchase Wreck simply known as the Wreck. It was
Speaker 1: the heartbeat of the neighborhood, where local boys shot hoops,
Speaker 1: swapped stories, and tried to act a little older than
Speaker 1: they were. Eddie wasn't the best basketball player. His friends
Speaker 1: loved to tease him about that, but he didn't care.
Speaker 1: He loved the game and just loved being there. At
Speaker 1: home games, he had a favorite spot, a large boxy
Speaker 1: seating section above the east basket called the Looney Bin.
Speaker 1: From here Eddie would shout down they guse friends on
Speaker 1: the court and hackle them withinside jokes. One friend, Sharon Donohue,
Speaker 1: put it simply, he was a nice guy, not like
Speaker 1: the other boys. He was friends with everyone, and it
Speaker 1: was true. Eddie wasn't flashy, he wasn't loud, He wasn't
Speaker 1: the kind of teenager one would expect to end up
Speaker 1: in headlines. He was just a good kid, the kind
Speaker 1: who made people feel like they belonged, the kind who
Speaker 1: brought humor to Sunday mornings and tenderness to broken winged birds,
Speaker 1: The kind who should have had so much more time.
Speaker 1: It was Friday night, the eleventh of November nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: four in Fox Chase. That meant friend's fast food and curfews.
Speaker 1: For Eddie Polock, it meant what it always meant, sticking
Speaker 1: close to home, hanging out at the wreck, maybe grabbing
Speaker 1: something to eat, and making it back home before eleven
Speaker 1: thirty pm. He liked to end his nights the same way.
Speaker 1: Every weekend, playing Poe with his dad in the basement,
Speaker 1: eating pizza, just the two of them. That night, Eddie
Speaker 1: was with his younger brother Billy, and a group of
Speaker 1: their friends. Their mother, Kathy, had offered to cook dinner,
Speaker 1: but the boys had other plans. McDonald's was calling. Kathy
Speaker 1: handed each of them five dollars and dropped them off
Speaker 1: at a friend's house. From there, they made the familiar
Speaker 1: walk to the Fox Chase Wrecks Center, just across the
Speaker 1: train tracks up Rockwell Avenue. It was just a typical
Speaker 1: Friday night. After the wreck, they headed to work to McDonald's.
Speaker 1: But that night something fell off. The sound came first, tires,
Speaker 1: screeching engines, roaring headlights cutting across the parking lot like searchlights.
Speaker 1: Then came the people. Car slammed to a stop and
Speaker 1: doors burst open. Dozens of teenagers poured out of the cars,
Speaker 1: and then dozens turned into scores. There were maybe seventy
Speaker 1: of them. They spilled into the parking lot in waves, yelling, pacing,
Speaker 1: and circling. The air crackled with something meaner and angrier.
Speaker 1: They weren't there for fries or milkshakes. They were there
Speaker 1: for a fight. They were there for blood. The feud
Speaker 1: between fox Chase and Abington wasn't new. It had been
Speaker 1: burning for decades, passed down from one class of teenagers
Speaker 1: to the next like an ugly family heirloom. The border
Speaker 1: between the two towns wasn't just asphalt and signage. It
Speaker 1: was tribal, and sometimes that tribe turned toxic. Police Inspector
Speaker 1: John Norris put it bluntly when he said, in the
Speaker 1: old days you would have seen fistfights. There was a
Speaker 1: terf psychology the northwest. But that's all over the northeast.
Speaker 1: Except it wasn't over, not really. The tension had been
Speaker 1: simmering and all it really needed was a spark. That
Speaker 1: spark came a weak earlier. It started with a car
Speaker 1: ride to Abington. Girls Diana and Jessica, were driving behind
Speaker 1: a car of their male friends. The boys pulled into
Speaker 1: the McDonald's parking lot across from the wreck, and the
Speaker 1: girls followed. At first, it was just to stop for food.
Speaker 1: A few minutes later, a couple of fox Chase boys
Speaker 1: walked through the lot, flanked by the two girls. One
Speaker 1: of them locked eyes with somebody from the Abington car.
Speaker 1: What are you looking at? He said? Nothing? Man, Why
Speaker 1: don't you keep walking? Came the reply, But it didn't
Speaker 1: end there. Do you want to fight? Come on, we'll
Speaker 1: take it back to the wreck. I'll fuck you up,
Speaker 1: then I'll spit on your girl. The tone shifted. The
Speaker 1: girls who had been with the Fox Chase boys peeled away,
Speaker 1: and Diana and Jessica suddenly found themselves alone and outnumbered.
Speaker 1: The parking lot filled in fast. Dinnah said it was
Speaker 1: like they appeared from nowhere. There were thirty kids, maybe more.
Speaker 1: She said. The boys we were with just took off.
Speaker 1: They left us there. It was chaos. Diana said that
Speaker 1: they were shoved, harassed, screamed that they were spit on.
Speaker 1: Somebody hurled soda into their car. The two girls made
Speaker 1: it back to their car and sped off. They went
Speaker 1: home to Abington and told their friends what had happened,
Speaker 1: but by the time the story made its way through
Speaker 1: the hallways of Abington Heights, it had changed. Rumors spread
Speaker 1: that the girls had been raped. Nobody could say by who, when,
Speaker 1: or of it actually happened, but the rumor didn't need
Speaker 1: details for it to stick. By the next weekend, the
Speaker 1: boys at Abington were organizing. They start joking about renting
Speaker 1: a U haul to head into the city. They weren't
Speaker 1: going to wait for another chance encounter. So on Friday night,
Speaker 1: November eleventh, the same night that Eddie Pollock was out
Speaker 1: with his friends, three cars left the Willow Grove Park
Speaker 1: mall loaded with boys. They weren't just coming to talk,
Speaker 1: they were armed with baseball bats. On the way, more
Speaker 1: cars joined in, one filled with girls, including Jessica and Diana.
Speaker 1: The destination wasn't random. They were heading to the place
Speaker 1: where it all began, Fox Chase McDonald's. Eddie and a
Speaker 1: few of his friends and brother were still in the
Speaker 1: McDonald's parking lot when the Abington teenagers arrived. They stormed
Speaker 1: out of their vehicles. There were dozens of them, most
Speaker 1: wielding baseball bats. Some had bottles, some more steal too boots,
Speaker 1: some just had fists clenched tight. The screaming started, first slurs, threats,
Speaker 1: demands to fight, and then came the smashing. Car windows shattered,
Speaker 1: tires screeched again as cars repositioned. A group of fox
Speaker 1: Chase teenagers hanging out nearby, and before they could react,
Speaker 1: the violence erupted. A melli broke out, punches, flu bats, swung,
Speaker 1: people ran. People who witnessed it said that it was
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Speaker 1: and his friends didn't run it first. Sean later recalled,
Speaker 1: it seemed like there were seventy of them. They kept coming.
Speaker 1: Eddie and I didn't run it first. They didn't have
Speaker 1: any reason to run. They hadn't done anything wrong. They
Speaker 1: weren't part of whatever grudge had boiled over. They were
Speaker 1: just there, caught in the middle. But the fight was
Speaker 1: everywhere now. Fox Chase teens tried to escape on foot.
Speaker 1: Abington teens gave chase by car, swerving up straights, hopping curbs,
Speaker 1: prowling for targets, Eddie and his younger brother Billy, and
Speaker 1: their friend Sean decided to get out of there and
Speaker 1: walk home. They got through the parking lot of Saint
Speaker 1: Cecelia's Church. It was a familiar place, quiet and usually safe,
Speaker 1: but not tonight. As they crossed the lot, five cars
Speaker 1: pulled in behind them. In formation slung open, and teenage
Speaker 1: boys poured out, brandishing baseball bats. They turned on Eddie
Speaker 1: and his friends. They took off on foot, but Eddie
Speaker 1: was at the back. One bat swung hard towards his head.
Speaker 1: He arched his back and narrowly dodged it, but then
Speaker 1: Eddie's foot caught on something and he tripped over. He
Speaker 1: hit the ground hard. Within seconds, they were on him.
Speaker 1: Eddie was punched and kicked from every angle. He tried
Speaker 1: to shield himself, curling in to himself, but it didn't matter.
Speaker 1: They struck him with bats again and again. Some of
Speaker 1: them wore steel toad boots and used them. Sharon Donahue
Speaker 1: saw it all happen. She knew Edie. They'd worked near
Speaker 1: each other at the Huntington Valley shopping center. Eddie cooked
Speaker 1: at Boston Chicken with her uncle. Sharen worked part time
Speaker 1: at Woolworth's. She and her friend Terry had been hanging
Speaker 1: out when they heard the yelling, then the screaming. Then
Speaker 1: they saw the crowd. Sharon started shouting, pleading, begging them
Speaker 1: to stop. She watched on in horror as Eddie was
Speaker 1: lifted by his arms and legs and swung back and
Speaker 1: forth like a rag doll. He was then held up
Speaker 1: in place as bats connected with his head and torso
Speaker 1: they dropped him to the ground, but they kept going.
Speaker 1: The sound was horrific. The crack of the bat on
Speaker 1: Eddie's bones then came the silence. The attackers fled, rushing
Speaker 1: back to their cars and speeding off into the night.
Speaker 1: Sharon ran to Eddie's side. She dropped her knees and
Speaker 1: cradled his head in her lap. His face was covered
Speaker 1: in blood. One eye was shut and the other was
Speaker 1: rolling uncontrollably. He wasn't speaking, he wasn't moving, but he
Speaker 1: was still breathing. Sharon recalled, he was breathing kind of weird,
Speaker 1: but I thought he was going to be all right.
Speaker 1: That's what I kept telling him, It's going to be
Speaker 1: all right. She screamed for help, for someone, anyone to
Speaker 1: call nine one one She then ran to a payphone
Speaker 1: and called police herself. Others had already called as well,
Speaker 1: they're pack kase, they're really noisy inside the MacDonald's. In
Speaker 1: the party, residents had come out of their homes to
Speaker 1: see what the noise was. Some of them were already
Speaker 1: on the phone with emergency services. People in McDonald's had
Speaker 1: already called as well. I have a busy and I
Speaker 1: deserved one of my customers windows, but nobody came. Five
Speaker 1: minutes past ten fifteen, still nothing. It would be forty
Speaker 1: minutes before help arrived. By then, Eddie's breaths were thin.
Speaker 1: He was fading fast. Parmedics loaded him into an ambulance,
Speaker 1: and their sirens broke the night. They sped towards Albert
Speaker 1: Einstein Medical Center, but by then it was already too late.
Speaker 1: Eddie died the next morning. He was just sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: At the Medical Examiner's office, doctor ain Hood conducted the autopsy.
Speaker 1: What he found was horrifying. Eddie had been struck in
Speaker 1: the head at least eight times with a baseball bat.
Speaker 1: His skull had been crushed so badly that doctor had
Speaker 1: compared it to a dropped eggshell. There were half inch
Speaker 1: gaps in the cranium. Defensive wounds showed that Eddie had
Speaker 1: tried desperately to protect himself. The first blow had likely
Speaker 1: stunned him. After that, he never stood a chance. Within
Speaker 1: ours of Eddie Pollock's death, grief spilled into the streets
Speaker 1: of fox Chase outside Saint Cecelia's Church, and makeshift memorial
Speaker 1: began to grow. People left on floors, photographs, candles, handwritten letters.
Speaker 1: The pavement was still stained with Eddie's blood. Somebody had
Speaker 1: placed a small sign directly over the dried red streaks,
Speaker 1: which read I believe in peace Long Crest. Even students
Speaker 1: from having Toton High School brought a bouquet. The boundaries
Speaker 1: that once divided the two neighborhoods, fox Chase and Abington
Speaker 1: suddenly seemed relevant. For decades, kids on both sides had
Speaker 1: traded punches, insults, and territorial pride, but nothing like this,
Speaker 1: nothing that ended in a body on the church steps. Now,
Speaker 1: the talk of rivalry was everywhere, but to those who
Speaker 1: knew Edree, it didn't fit. He wasn't one of those kids.
Speaker 1: His friend Sean said it best, It just hurts too
Speaker 1: much and was never going to make sense. Eddie was
Speaker 1: the most innocent guy you had ever meet. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: have been him. The people who did it to him,
Speaker 1: they were cowards. In the days that followed, Eddie's friends,
Speaker 1: especially the ones who had been with him that night,
Speaker 1: were left traumatized. They had to undergo counseling and some
Speaker 1: of them struggled to sleep. And then there was the
Speaker 1: threat of revenge. Whispers ran through Fox Chase. Detectives knew
Speaker 1: the risk. They quickly put a plan in place to
Speaker 1: prevent any retaliatory violence or vandalism. Extra patrols were stationed
Speaker 1: on street corners. Clergy and social workers were called in
Speaker 1: to talk with families. Time watch groups mobilized. Every effort
Speaker 1: was made to keep the streets clam Even Pizza Hut
Speaker 1: joined in their marquee, which was visible from the avenue,
Speaker 1: read in bold block letters, please stop the violence. At
Speaker 1: midnight curfew was even implemented, and police made it clear
Speaker 1: the fighting had to end. Inspector John Norris stood before
Speaker 1: the press and addressed the city directly when he said,
Speaker 1: were urging all the parents to talk to their children
Speaker 1: and know where they are this weekend and other weekends.
Speaker 1: The message was urgent, almost pleading, and at the center
Speaker 1: of it all was Edrie's family. Graving in public under
Speaker 1: the weight of unbearable loss. They issued a statement not
Speaker 1: for justice, not for revenge, but for peace. They asked
Speaker 1: that no more blood be spilled in Eddie's name. Many
Speaker 1: of the teenagers promised to honor that way, Some meant that,
Speaker 1: some weren't so sure. One teenager said, if it weren't
Speaker 1: for his family, those Abington kids would be dead. They
Speaker 1: want blood. Another then added, I wouldn't have any problem
Speaker 1: if one of those kids got killed. It didn't take
Speaker 1: long for arrest to be made. The teenagers had taken
Speaker 1: part in the savage baiting of Eddie Pollock weren't exactly
Speaker 1: lying low. By the next morning, they were bragging about
Speaker 1: what they'd done. Some are on town, other to friends
Speaker 1: laughing about it. Eighteen year old Thomas Krook was the
Speaker 1: first to be arrested. He confessed outright to being involved,
Speaker 1: but he was quick to insist we didn't go down
Speaker 1: there to kill anybody. Krook admitted to swinging a baseball
Speaker 1: bat at Edie, but claimed he never struck him in
Speaker 1: the head. He said he just got caught up in
Speaker 1: the excitement. Krook lived in a townhouse complex with his
Speaker 1: mother and younger siblings. He dropped out of Upper Moorland
Speaker 1: High School and had a history of minor run ins
Speaker 1: with the law. Later that same day, police arrested sixteen
Speaker 1: year old Nicholas Pinero and seventeen year old Bou Kathavong.
Speaker 1: Kathovong's family had fled warren torn Laos in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: escaping the threat of communist execution. The family had lived
Speaker 1: in a refugee camp in Thailand before finally immigrating to
Speaker 1: the United States in search of a better life. Now
Speaker 1: their teenage son was being charged with murder. All three
Speaker 1: boys were charged with murder, aggravated assault, and weapons offenses.
Speaker 1: One of their defense attorneys tried to put the crime
Speaker 1: into context, as he said, this is not a typical
Speaker 1: street crime. Something happens in the space of a few seconds,
Speaker 1: and a whole slew of lives are changed irrevocably. That
Speaker 1: may have been true, but de EDI's family and friends
Speaker 1: it was no excuse. On the sixteenth of November, almost
Speaker 1: three thousand people packed into Saint Cecilia's Church for Eddie's funeral.
Speaker 1: The same church were just days earlier, he'd been beaten
Speaker 1: to death on the pavement the same church where he
Speaker 1: had once served as an altar boy. His high school
Speaker 1: classmates were brought in by bus. Abuse filled quickly, and
Speaker 1: by ten a m. It was standing room only outside.
Speaker 1: A broad metal casket arrived through the drizzle. Inside, Reverend
Speaker 1: James Olsen stood at the altar and tried to find
Speaker 1: the words. He told the mourners he was one of
Speaker 1: the good guys, a real good person, a gentle person.
Speaker 1: The priest remembered Eddie as a boy who couldn't sit
Speaker 1: quite still during mass. His legs were too short to
Speaker 1: touch the ground, so he'd swing them back and forth
Speaker 1: the entire time. It was a memory that made people smile,
Speaker 1: but it didn't last long. Olson then pleaded with the community,
Speaker 1: don't let this death lead to more violence, don't let
Speaker 1: it fuel revenge. After the service, a possession of more
Speaker 1: than one hundred cars followed Eddie's hearse to Our Lady
Speaker 1: Grace Cemetery and Langhorn. The rain came down harder as
Speaker 1: the casket was lowered into the ground. His mother sobbed.
Speaker 1: His friend stepped forward one by one, placing single floors
Speaker 1: on top of the coffin. Then came the fallout. In
Speaker 1: the days after Eddie's funeral, outrage spread not just at
Speaker 1: the brutality of the murder, but at something else, the
Speaker 1: emergency response that failed to come in time. It was
Speaker 1: revealed that on the night that Eddie was killed, police
Speaker 1: didn't arrive for forty minutes. After the first nine one
Speaker 1: one call, people began asking would Eddie still be alive
Speaker 1: if help had come sooner. At ten ten p m.
Speaker 1: A waitress at the Pizza Hut on Oxford Avenue had
Speaker 1: called nine one one. She saw teenagers piling out from
Speaker 1: cars baseball bats in hand. They were chasing someone, but
Speaker 1: she didn't know who. She called again and again they
Speaker 1: have a gun away fifty's young kids with face to
Speaker 1: see each other. More calls followed, What are they doing
Speaker 1: bossing up the cars? Windows? There were they? One from
Speaker 1: a man who tried to hold the phone out the
Speaker 1: doors of the operator could hear the commotion he was
Speaker 1: hung up on. Others described gangs of teenagers rampaging through
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, smashing car windows, chasing others and beating people
Speaker 1: with baseball bats. I don't believe it. It's wrang about
Speaker 1: ten times. There's a big emotion going outside in front
Speaker 1: of our home, like a gang. One caller told the
Speaker 1: dispatcher of boys being beaten in the church parking lot gang.
Speaker 1: If you get that, yeah, herd outside of the fight right, well,
Speaker 1: that it and the point. Wait a minute, Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you asked me. I'm asking you. I
Speaker 1: have the information. You can hang up now, the operator replied,
Speaker 1: was that it? The calls just kept floating in. We've
Speaker 1: been polling everybody. Murder has been falling there and we
Speaker 1: got in there riot and no damn police where they
Speaker 1: were becoming more desperate. When he is gonna send somebody
Speaker 1: who's got a fat sirs, he's gotta stop some girl.
Speaker 1: What's a honey moon? Wait a minute, wait a minute's
Speaker 1: costing me like that? I asked you a questions, got
Speaker 1: a friend if he laughed for white on his hands.
Speaker 1: One office, Sharon Donahue, who held Atty's bloody head in
Speaker 1: her lap as he struggled to Breathe had called nine
Speaker 1: one one as well. She was frown thic screaming begging
Speaker 1: for help. The operator snapped back, listen, if you don't
Speaker 1: come though, he gets no help. Do you understand that
Speaker 1: much sleep? He's a hospital, he's sleeping. Where's he? The
Speaker 1: thing's please? I can't understand you give me an address this?
Speaker 1: Where's that at? When I thrived him, Hosford was who guys, listen, listen.
Speaker 1: If you don't calm down, he gets so help. You
Speaker 1: got to say that, but I'm crying. In total, there
Speaker 1: were thirty three calls made to nine to one one
Speaker 1: that night, but no one at the police radio room
Speaker 1: seemed to realize they were all related. The first officers
Speaker 1: weren't dispatched until ten forty one pm. A patrol cars
Speaker 1: in a wagon arrived two minutes later. An officer then
Speaker 1: radioed in, he's going in and out of consciousness. Need
Speaker 1: rescue immediately, but by then it was already too late. Hey, everybody,
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Speaker 1: promo code morbidology. A high ranking POL official later tried
Speaker 1: to explain what had gone wrong. He said the problem
Speaker 1: wasn't just the delay, it was the system itself. In
Speaker 1: the past, a person calling the police would speak to
Speaker 1: an actual dispatcher, often a police officer, somebody who could
Speaker 1: hear the fear in their voice and then judge the urgencies.
Speaker 1: He stated. In those days, response time was two minutes
Speaker 1: or less, but now ninety eight percent of the radio
Speaker 1: room staff were civilians, many of them pearly trained. Call
Speaker 1: takers didn't make dispatched decisions. They simply typed what the
Speaker 1: caller said into a computer screen. A separate dispatcher decided
Speaker 1: whether or not to send the car. On that night,
Speaker 1: the incident unfolding across Fox Chase was marked as low priority.
Speaker 1: Mary Sante, president of the Taconi Town Watch, said nine
Speaker 1: one one was a state of the art blooper. Her
Speaker 1: group had kept logs on many nights. They tracked forty
Speaker 1: five to one hundred and fifteen pending calls after eleven
Speaker 1: p m. So I'm going back to five p m.
Speaker 1: She' said. One major flaw was that the call takers
Speaker 1: didn't even consider baseball bats to be weapons. When the
Speaker 1: nine one one tapes were finally reviewed, the public was horrified.
Speaker 1: Police Commissioner Richard Neale announced an internal investigation. Mayor ed
Speaker 1: Randall's chief of staff, David Cohen, promised changes. He stated,
Speaker 1: this incident was not handled properly. There will have to
Speaker 1: be disciplinary actions and there will be reforms made to
Speaker 1: the system. When you listen to the tapes, it's very
Speaker 1: clear that some dispatchers behaved in a very inappropriate manner.
Speaker 1: They were rude, and they didn't respond in a way
Speaker 1: we should expect any municipal employees to respond to the public,
Speaker 1: let alone a nine one one operator. What happened to
Speaker 1: Eddie Pollock wasn't just a tragedy. It was a systemic failure,
Speaker 1: from the gang violence to the late response to the
Speaker 1: dismissed voices on the other end of a desperate phone call,
Speaker 1: and now the city of Philadelphia left to reckon with
Speaker 1: it all. The failures of the nine one one system
Speaker 1: weren't the only aspect of the case drawing scrutiny. Attention
Speaker 1: soon turned to the teenage girl at the center of
Speaker 1: the original altercation, the fight outside the McDonald's that had
Speaker 1: sparked everything. Her name was Jessica. After Eddie was murdered,
Speaker 1: Jessica sat down with an interview at her family home
Speaker 1: with her parents and reporters present. She answered some questions
Speaker 1: but refused others. When asked whether she had talked in
Speaker 1: Abington about the altercation she had at McDonald's, she didn't deny.
Speaker 1: She stated anyone would go back and tell their friends
Speaker 1: who wouldn't, But then she added something more serious. Me
Speaker 1: and my friends didn't say anything about getting raped. Jessica
Speaker 1: believed that it was the rape rumor that brought out
Speaker 1: the people looking to fight, that it had given them
Speaker 1: an excuse. She described the knight that Eddie was killed,
Speaker 1: she and her friends had driven down to Fox Chase.
Speaker 1: She said they pulled into the McDonald's parking lot, but
Speaker 1: before they even got out, somebody threw rocks at their car,
Speaker 1: so they left. Thank all, we left and didn't stay,
Speaker 1: she said. Our friend Diana echoed this sentiment. I feel
Speaker 1: bad for his family, for his mom and dad. I
Speaker 1: feel bad for my friends too, for the whole situation,
Speaker 1: she said. At that stage in the investigation, Homicide Captain
Speaker 1: John Ablton made it clear what we're doing is checking
Speaker 1: all of the facts. We will determine who is responsible
Speaker 1: beside the three we have already arrested. That determination came quickly.
Speaker 1: Three more teenagers were then arrested, seventeen year olds Dwan Alexander,
Speaker 1: Anthony Rienzi, and Kevin Convey. Alexander was attending Leakside Youth Services,
Speaker 1: a school for students expelled from other schools. Convey lived
Speaker 1: in Meadowbanks, a wealthy neighborhood, hardly the place you'd expect
Speaker 1: to find attain at the center of a fatal gang baiting.
Speaker 1: By now, detectives believe they had the full picture. Bou
Speaker 1: Kathafong had orchestrated the entire thing. He had organized the
Speaker 1: five car loads of teenagers that descended on Fox Chase
Speaker 1: that night. Kevin Convey had been the first to strike
Speaker 1: Eddie with a baseball bat, then Thomas Crook swung his
Speaker 1: Nicholas Ponero hit Eddie six more times. From the front,
Speaker 1: Kathavong punched and kicked Edie, while Dewan Alexander kicked him
Speaker 1: in the head with steel toed boots, and when Eddie
Speaker 1: had crumpled to the ground, barely conscious and bleeding, Anthony
Speaker 1: Rienzi dragged him up just so the others could get
Speaker 1: another clean shot at him. Police source later commented, they're
Speaker 1: problem kids. They've been busted numerous times, fights, marijuana, underage
Speaker 1: drinking problems. They're involved in a lot of assaults. At
Speaker 1: the same time, accountability was fine being addressed within the
Speaker 1: nine one one center. Seven operators were disciplined, three were
Speaker 1: suspended with the intent to dismiss, three others were suspended
Speaker 1: and transferred. One was referred to a disciplinary board. Mayor
Speaker 1: ed Randall stated, they're being suspended for abusive and rude
Speaker 1: responses to callers. That is unacceptable. Reforms were then introduced.
Speaker 1: The city hired more nine one one workers and launched
Speaker 1: sensitivity training. A new alarm system was installed in the
Speaker 1: radio room to alert supervisors when four or more calls
Speaker 1: came from the same location. The number of shift supervisors
Speaker 1: was doubled, but for Eddie's family, none of that mattered
Speaker 1: much anymore. Days after the reforms were announced, police arrested
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Carlos Johnson, the man who had supplied
Speaker 1: the baseball bats used in the murder. At the preliminary hearing,
Speaker 1: the judge ruled that all seven teenagers would stand trial
Speaker 1: for murder. Those accused of wielding the baths. Pinero, Rihensay,
Speaker 1: and Crook were held directly responsible for the fatal Blues
Speaker 1: prosecutor Joseph Casey announced, I've never seen a skull so fractured.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a skull where the brain expanded and
Speaker 1: literally opened those fractures into crevices. In the year following
Speaker 1: Eddie's murderer, the community rallied behind his family. Friends noticed
Speaker 1: a change in his mother, Kathy. Her eyes, they said,
Speaker 1: were different now. Matt MacDonald, one of Eddie's classmates, observed,
Speaker 1: she has a sadness in her eyes. Now there's a
Speaker 1: spark that's gone. Kathy eventually returned to work as a
Speaker 1: skull crossing guard. It kept her near children. She always
Speaker 1: carried a pocket full of candy, taffy and lollipops to
Speaker 1: hand out. She needed to stay close to something good.
Speaker 1: But she and Eddie's fa John never stopped asking why
Speaker 1: we wonder if we understood the teachings of Catholicism right?
Speaker 1: Kathy added, quietly, No way God would have meant for
Speaker 1: this to happen. John struggled to reconcile the violence with
Speaker 1: the world. He thought he knew they had every right
Speaker 1: to see over the nine one one failure, but they
Speaker 1: chose not to. John explained what everyone hears about is
Speaker 1: a bunch of rude call takers. It wasn't the nine
Speaker 1: one one people. The whole system could not get the
Speaker 1: phone calls to the cars on the streets that night.
Speaker 1: They didn't want money, and they didn't want a settlement.
Speaker 1: They just wanted justice for their son. On the one
Speaker 1: year anniversary of Eddie's murder, hundreds of people returned to
Speaker 1: Saint Cethelia's church. A memorial mass was held, followed by
Speaker 1: a candlelight vigil on the church steps. The crowd was
Speaker 1: solemn and reflect them, and as they gathered, people began
Speaker 1: to whisper amongst themselves about the upcoming murder trial and
Speaker 1: whether justice would truly be served. The jury selection began
Speaker 1: on the second of January nineteen ninety six. The seven
Speaker 1: defendants were to stand trial together. However, Kevin Convey never
Speaker 1: showed up in court. He accepted a play agreement and
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to third degree murderer, which carried a sentence
Speaker 1: of five to twenty years in prison. Convey admitted that
Speaker 1: he had landed the first blow on Airey that sent
Speaker 1: him falling to the ground. As part of his deal,
Speaker 1: he agreed to testify against his friends, friends who are
Speaker 1: now facing life in prison if convicted. By the sixth
Speaker 1: of January, a jury was selected, six African Americans, one
Speaker 1: white juror, and one Hispanic. The trial was ready to begin.
Speaker 1: The central question was whether the six youths had the
Speaker 1: premeditated intent to kill, a requirement for first degree murder.
Speaker 1: The defendants were escorted into court. They looked like college students,
Speaker 1: dressed in sweaters, slacks, and collared shirts, a far cry
Speaker 1: from the night they beat Eddie to death with baseball bats.
Speaker 1: During opening statements, defense attorney Charles Perudo tried to portray
Speaker 1: Eddie as the instigator. He described him as a beer
Speaker 1: drinking tuff who sold beer to his friends from a keg.
Speaker 1: He stated, Eddie sold his beer the kids gathered, the
Speaker 1: spirit was mobbing. It was kind of like a pregame rally.
Speaker 1: Another defense attorney, Michael Applebaum, went further. He claimed that
Speaker 1: Eddie was part of the Fox Chase mob that provoked
Speaker 1: the massive brawl. He stated, mister Pollock belonged to a
Speaker 1: group of youths who turned up anyone who crossed their turf.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Joseph Casey refuted these claims, calling them an accurate
Speaker 1: at best. Eddie's father, John added that his son had
Speaker 1: been working the night of the McDonald's altercation involving the
Speaker 1: two girls. I think mister Applebaum has ed mistaken for
Speaker 1: someone else, he said. When Kevin Convey pleaded guilty, he
Speaker 1: admitted that Eddie wasn't involved in any of the prior
Speaker 1: clashes between the Abington and fox Chase groups. The defense's
Speaker 1: arguments that Eddie wasn't innocent didn't hold up. It was
Speaker 1: revealed that some defendants faced other charges from that same night.
Speaker 1: Carlos Johnson was charged with slamming Richard Stubart at the
Speaker 1: ground and smashing a bottle over his head. Pinero and
Speaker 1: Alexander were charged with bating John Atkinson in the head
Speaker 1: with baseball bats. These attacks happened in the moments before
Speaker 1: Eddie was killed. The prosecutor then laid out the sequence
Speaker 1: of events. Convie struck Eddie first, knocking him down. He
Speaker 1: then hit him in the legs and fate before the
Speaker 1: others joined in. Ransay struck Eddie in the head, crushing
Speaker 1: the right side of his skull. Krook hit him three
Speaker 1: more times on the shoulder. Then Riansy lifted Eddie up
Speaker 1: by his shoulders and held him why. Pinero struck him
Speaker 1: again and again with the baseball bat. Alexander kicked him
Speaker 1: at least twice with the steel toed boot. Cathavong stood
Speaker 1: nearby and cheered. Doctor Lucy rowan specialist, said that the
Speaker 1: beating caused such extreme swelling in Eddie's brain that it
Speaker 1: cut off blood flowed to his heart and lungs. Photographs
Speaker 1: of Eddie's brain were then shown in court. His mother,
Speaker 1: Kathy Leader, said, I'm glad they showed the pictures. The
Speaker 1: jury has to see that, and the families of the
Speaker 1: kids that did that have to see it too. Teenagers
Speaker 1: then testified about the earlier incident at McDonald's. William Owner
Speaker 1: admitted to being part of the Fox Chase group that
Speaker 1: harassed Jessica and Diana confirmed that Eddie wasn't there. Other
Speaker 1: teenagers then described the attack. Terence Nurse, a member of
Speaker 1: the Abington group, said he was chasing someone else when
Speaker 1: his friends attacked Debbie. He told the court what he
Speaker 1: saw matched what the prosecution said and what convey said.
Speaker 1: Defense attorney Perudo suggested that Terrence was only spared because
Speaker 1: he agreed to testify. Terrence responded, I know what I saw.
Speaker 1: Thomas Ruth testified that he was with friends at a
Speaker 1: convenience when the Abington group pulled up. He said it
Speaker 1: was clear that Cathafung was the leader and he heard
Speaker 1: him yell, come on, let's go. I'm so sagged I
Speaker 1: could kill somebody. The defense attorneys were aggressive in their
Speaker 1: cross examinations. John Pollock, during a corporate commented, the Fox
Speaker 1: Chase kids were doing nothing different that night than kids
Speaker 1: in Fox Chase have done for thirty years. If that's
Speaker 1: justification for them to murder him the way they did,
Speaker 1: then there's something really screwed up with the justice system.
Speaker 1: The other victims testified as well. John Atkinson had been
Speaker 1: struck in the head at least ten times with the bat.
Speaker 1: Fourteen months later, he still coldn't remember much. Prosecutors used
Speaker 1: this Orgie that Eddie's death wasn't an isolated act. These
Speaker 1: boys had come out looking for blood. Matthew Malone testified
Speaker 1: that he witnessed John's attack. He had managed to drag
Speaker 1: him to safety. He also saw Johnson grab Richard Stuber,
Speaker 1: slam him to the ground, and hit him with a bottle.
Speaker 1: The courtroom then fell silent as the prosecution's key witness
Speaker 1: took to the stand, Kevin Convey. He recalled the last
Speaker 1: moments of Eddie's life. I heard the boys say I
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. He was kind of screaming and crying,
Speaker 1: he said. Kathy Polock broke down sobbing in the front row.
Speaker 1: In a surprise move, Convey named five other youths who
Speaker 1: were involved in the fatal beating, Jason Maskewn, Jeffrey and
Speaker 1: Jason Lang, kem Ones, and Ed Rodgers. He said that
Speaker 1: they punched and kicked Errey before the bats came out.
Speaker 1: He also said he saw Krook take the bat and
Speaker 1: hit Edie several times, but Convey said he didn't see
Speaker 1: Alexander Kathavong or Johnson near Edie during the attack. Their
Speaker 1: defense attorneys clung to this, arguing that they were elsewhere
Speaker 1: fighting other kids behind the church. In the second week
Speaker 1: of the trial, two teenage girls, Michelle Betone and Teresa Welsh,
Speaker 1: testified that it was Convey who may have delivered the
Speaker 1: fatal blows. They said the first hit struck Eddie on
Speaker 1: the head, and the attacker kept hitting until it was over.
Speaker 1: They were referring to Convey as the trial drew to
Speaker 1: a close. The defense struck to their arguments their clients
Speaker 1: didn't kill Ede. They pointed the finger back at Kevin Comvey.
Speaker 1: In his closing arguments, Prosecutor Casey rejected this narrative as
Speaker 1: the big lie. He said that each of them were
Speaker 1: guilty of first degree murder. He stated Eddie Polock was
Speaker 1: on the ground pleading for his life when Nicholas Ponero
Speaker 1: raised the bat over his head and snapped it. One
Speaker 1: person by himself wouldn't have gone down to fox Chase
Speaker 1: and done that, but together they did, so they are
Speaker 1: all liable if they had shared the intent to kill.
Speaker 1: The jury went into the liberation and they returned with
Speaker 1: a verdict. Nicholas Ponero, Anthony Rienz, and Thomas Crook were
Speaker 1: found guilty of third degree murder. Dewan Alexander was found
Speaker 1: guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Carlos Johnson and Buchathavong were found
Speaker 1: guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. Some jurors felt that
Speaker 1: the prosecution hadn't proven the team set out to kill
Speaker 1: that night. Others believed that at least two of the
Speaker 1: defendants should have been acquitted, and some thought first degree
Speaker 1: murder was warranted. They struck a compromise. Juror Lynn Pester,
Speaker 1: Leader said you had to eat crow for everyone to
Speaker 1: receive some sentence. We had to agree to something. It
Speaker 1: came down to raise an and compromise, and nobody came
Speaker 1: out a winner. Not the jurors, not the defendants, not
Speaker 1: the district attorney, and definitely not the Pollocks. All the
Speaker 1: defendants were given a second chance at life. Eddie's brother Billy,
Speaker 1: said that his brother might have wanted it that way.
Speaker 1: He said, my brother was the most forgiving person you'll
Speaker 1: ever want to meet, and I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: he didn't have a hand in this. Kevin Convey was
Speaker 1: sentenced first, and victim impact statements were presented. Eddie's father,
Speaker 1: John stood before the court room and addressed him directly,
Speaker 1: your actions that night allowed my son to die. I
Speaker 1: can never forgive you for that. Eddie's mother, Cathy followed.
Speaker 1: Her voice was steady, but her pain was evident, as
Speaker 1: she said, I wish I could say you've done the
Speaker 1: honorable thing, but human nature being what it is, I
Speaker 1: believe you had a need to survive. I believe everyone
Speaker 1: has some decency in them. But I also believe the
Speaker 1: need to survive is stronger. Then came Eddie's brother, Billy.
Speaker 1: He spoke about the mornings why each one started with
Speaker 1: the same aching thought. What could he have done differently?
Speaker 1: What could he have done to change what happened that night.
Speaker 1: He called Eddie a great friend and said the men
Speaker 1: responsible had stripped him of that. Convey's defense attorney told
Speaker 1: the court that his class and it was remorseful that
Speaker 1: nothing could bring back Erie. The convey planned on writing
Speaker 1: a letter to Edie's family. Then the judge handed down
Speaker 1: the sentence twenty years in prison. The following month, it
Speaker 1: was the rest of the defendants who faced sentencing. John
Speaker 1: once again stood and spoke, all six of you slaughtered
Speaker 1: my son. You took an innocent and real happy, go
Speaker 1: lucky kid and bade his brains to a bloody pulp.
Speaker 1: Don't stand up and turn around and look at me
Speaker 1: or Kathy or Kirsty and Bill. We've heard you deny
Speaker 1: this for months. If you're going to say you're sorry,
Speaker 1: don't bother. Only two of them did, but Kathavong stood
Speaker 1: and said, I'd just like to say to the polic family,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for my involvement in this whole incident. Thomas
Speaker 1: Crook said, I want to say I'm sorry. I hope
Speaker 1: my wrongdoings and my punishment will somehow help the next
Speaker 1: generation see what's right and what's wrong. Then came the sentences.
Speaker 1: Anthony Rienzi was sentenced to fifteen to thirty years, Thomas
Speaker 1: Krook was sentenced to fourteen and a half to thirty years.
Speaker 1: Nicholas Panero received ten to twenty years. Duan Alexander was
Speaker 1: sentenced to eight to twenty years. Carlus Johnson and Bukathovong
Speaker 1: both received five to ten years. All of the killers
Speaker 1: have since been released. Dwan Alexander served nine years in prison,
Speaker 1: Kevin Convey served seven years in prison, Carlus Johnson served
Speaker 1: six years in prison, Boukathavong served ten years in prison.
Speaker 1: Thomas Krook, Nick Panero, and Anthony Riense served fifteen years
Speaker 1: in prison. In the wake of Eddie's murder, his father
Speaker 1: John made a promise to himself that Eddie's death wouldn't
Speaker 1: be for nothing. He began speaking to students at schools
Speaker 1: and community events, urging them to think carefully about the
Speaker 1: decisions they make and who they followed. He said to them,
Speaker 1: my son didn't think anything would happen to him. Maybe
Speaker 1: one kid sitting there has to make a choice in
Speaker 1: the future. He never charged schools of fee. All he
Speaker 1: asked was a contribution to the Lost Dreams Living Hope's Program,
Speaker 1: an organization that created portraits of victims of fatal violence.
Speaker 1: John also tried to push for legeddice of change in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: He wanted the definition of first degree murder changed so
Speaker 1: that a case like Eires could never again result in
Speaker 1: what he saw as partial justice. That effort failed, but
Speaker 1: John wasn't done. He studied nine one one dispatch records,
Speaker 1: looking for every misstep that could have contributed to the
Speaker 1: delay that night. When the city failed to act on
Speaker 1: his findings, he threatened to soothe them, and he had
Speaker 1: every right to, and in the end he forced change.
Speaker 1: Training for nine one one dispatchers was overhauled with a
Speaker 1: focus on stress management and better crisis response. Technology was upgraded,
Speaker 1: including new mapping systems, better software, and computers inside patrol cars.
Speaker 1: Supervision and oversight were improved across the board. City officials
Speaker 1: finally admitted what everybody already knew. John Paulick had been
Speaker 1: the driving force behind all of it. Through unimaginable loss,
Speaker 1: he had become a fierce advocate, not just for his
Speaker 1: own son, but for every son and daughter whose cries
Speaker 1: for help might one day depend on the speed and
Speaker 1: strength of the system. Eddie's life was stolen in a
Speaker 1: senseless act of violence, but in his memory, his father
Speaker 1: built something that would outlast the pain, something that might
Speaker 1: say of someone else's child. And in doing so, John
Speaker 1: kept a part of Eddie alive through change, through purpose,
Speaker 1: and through the unwavering love of a father who refused
Speaker 1: to let his son be forgotten. Well that is it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening, and i'd like to say a massive
Speaker 1: thank you to my new supporters up on Patreon, Clara,
Speaker 1: Heather and Samantha. The link to Patreon is in the
Speaker 1: show notes. If you'd like to join, I upload adfree
Speaker 1: and early release episodes behind the scenes, and I also
Speaker 1: send out some kill merchant and thank you card. There's
Speaker 1: also a bunch of bonus episodes of Morbidology plus that
Speaker 1: are on on the regular podcast platforms. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to support the show in another way, please consider leaving
Speaker 1: a rating, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
Speaker 1: else you may be listening. It's a great way to
Speaker 1: support a show that you like, and I genuinely do
Speaker 1: appreciate the feedback. Remember to check us out at morebiology
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Speaker 1: read some true crime articles. Until next time, take care
Speaker 1: of yourselves, stay safe, and have an amazing week.