Credit: Submitted
After three hours of deliberations on Wednesday, a Bucks County jury found a Philadelphia man guilty of shooting a father of nine to death in Middletown Township.
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The jury returned after a three-day trial overseen by Court of Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Finley at the Justice Center.
The jury found Kahlill Saleem Brown, 34, of Philadelphia, guilty of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy to commit murder, firearms not to be carried without a license, possession of an instrument of crime, false swearing, and two counts of recklessly endangering another person. In addition, the judge found Brown guilty of persons not to possess a firearm.
Finley has pushed sentencing for 60 days.
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Brown and his mother, Joyce Brown-Rodriguez, 56, of Philadelphia, were charged with the December 10, 2020 killing of Christopher M. Wilson, 52, of Philadelphia, following a grand jury investigation. Wilson was shot dead outside a now-closed recycling center on Wheeler Way where he worked in Middletown Township.
Brown-Rodriguez pleaded guilty last December to third-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder of the third degree, possession of a firearm, false swearing, and related offenses. She will be sentenced later this summer.
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Wilson had an affair with Brown-Rodriguez but it had ended not long before he was killed. Wilson claimed Brown-Rodriguez was upset at him and stalking him.
Brown-Rodriguez, who had been raising her son’s daughter, testified in court on Tuesday that she was waiting in a car outside the Wheeler Way business where Wilson worked and heard a pop, which she believed was a gunshot.
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“I said to [my son]: ‘what the f**k did you just do? I thought you were going to talk to him,’” Brown-Rodriguez said.
“He said: ‘I didn’t feel like talking,’” she testified.
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Brown-Rodriguez said in court that she moved the car to pick up her son after the shooting and the two fled back to Philadelphia. She said she was so shaken she missed the turn to I-95 and had to take Route 1 back home.
Richard J. Fuschino Jr., Brown’s defense attorney, pressed Brown-Rodriguez on lies she previously told detectives and the grand jury. He noted her story changed once she was thinking about her sentencing.
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The prosecution presented cell phone records, including data that showed Brown’s phone in the area of the shooting around the time it happened.
In court, Brown-Rodriguez testified that Wilson was a “good man” and had comforted her when her mother died. She grew close with him amid trouble with her husband. Their affair had ended by the time the murder happened.
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