‘This is Something a Mother Can’t Fix,’ Grieving Woman Says

“We  hadn’t spoken to each other in about a year … we just started texting the day before and agreed to talk on Saturday for the first time in a while,” Donna Britton Palmer said. “The next thing I knew,” she said, “Philadelphia detectives were at my door, telling me my son was murdered.”

Those are the somber words of a grieving mother whose son – Joesph Britton, 30 – was the victim of a brutal attack in which he was beaten to death with a baseball bat, investigators say. The attack happened on September 13 in Philadelphia’s Wissinoming section.

Palmer, in measured tones and thoughtful responses, said she is  “beside” herself with grief although she realizes her son was “no angel.”

The mother  wants answers, as any would,  and feels as though her son’s murder has been forgotten since there has been little coverage of the bludgeoning of the Levittown man and little progress in her words in the investigation.

On Tuesday, LevittownNow.com spoke with the Philadelphia Police Department for an update on the case. Later that day, detectives visited with Palmer in her Levittown home.

“I call them weekly, and this is the first time anyone has come to see me in awhile,” Palmer said of the detectives visiting her.

“They know who did this, and we know,” she said with a sense of defiance bounding through the ether carrying her voice through the air between cell lines.

Philadelphia authorities had no comment when asked if they had any suspects or persons of interest in their investigation. However, Palmer is convinced a former girlfriend and a male friend of the ex were “more than  involved” in the attack that caused severe head trauma, which Britton succumbed too around 1:40 a.m. after the attack in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

The names of those persons are being withheld by LevittowNow.com since they haven’t been charged for the crimes associated with the killing of Britton.

Both of those individuals are currently in the Pennsylvania correctional system serving time on charges unrelated to the killing of Britton, Palmer said. They grieving mother says just doesn’t understand why they haven’t been charged. A statement she sighed in a whisper exasperated by the process of a homicide investigation.

As with any homicide investigation, it often takes time for investigators to collect evidence, interview witnesses, collect data and track leads before filing charges.

Palmer’s patience is beyond extended at this point and so is Howard Hilgendorff’s. The man was Britton’s roommate for close to 8 years.

Just hours prior to the attack, Hilgendorff, a Levittown resident, picked up Britton in Trenton after a late church service.

“We were in the car on Friday night  driving home and Joey gets a call and tells them ‘I’ll be there in 20 minutes,’” Hilgendorff said. “After we got home, Joey said he had to run some errands and asked to borrow the car, which I said sure.”

“The next morning I get up and have missed calls from a number I don’t recognize, call it back and its Detective Harkins telling me Joey was killed,”  Hilgendorff said.

That’s when the grief, trauma, and now unanswered questions started, he said.

Sources  indicate authorities are chasing down leads related to cell phone calls and the towers involved on both sides of midnight during the late hours of that fall night.

Yet the police haven’t interviewed the man and woman yet, both in their 20s, the mother and roommate said. And for them, that’s beyond “frustrating.”

When speaking to each, they gave “Philly PD their due” but five months later and no arrests only intensifies their loss, they said.

There was no attempt to hide Britton had some issues in the past but had recently “made a new start,” Palmer said.  He had a new girlfriend, was  going to church, and was essentially changing the people, places and things, one must in order to escape the cycle of dependency, according to Palmer.

“You know  mom’s want to fix everything for their kids, but unfortunately, this is something I can’t fix,” Palmer said taking  a deep breathe that could be heard on the other end of the phone.

At the time of the incident, police said they were searching for four suspects in connection with the murder. Investigators described the suspects as two black males, one white male and one Hispanic male traveling in a a black Ford Crown Victoria with tinted windows.

The Philadelphia Police Department is offering a $20,000  reward to anyone with information that leads to the arrest and subsequent conviction of the individual (s) involved in the homicide of Joesph Britton.  You can call Detective Harkins at 215-686-3334.