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Defendant

Date of Crime

Frederick A. Thomas was convicted of the murder of William "Skip" Moyer Jr., a Federal Express truck driver.  Thomas was sentenced to death.  Moyer was shot in the face at 9th and Clearfield Streets in a drug-infested neighborhood often referred to as “The Badlands.”

A male caller phoned police three days after the murder to say that he worked for Federal Express and he "had heard that Moyer had been opening packages that he was to deliver" and "that whenever Moyer delivered to a certain address in North Philly, he knew drugs were being sent to the address because it was always the same address." The caller alleged that Moyer "had taken some weed and recently ‘ripped off’ a kilo of cocaine."  According to the coroner's report, Moyer had cocaine and methamphetamine in his system at the time of the killing.

A witness to the shooting, Maria Fielding, who died in 1999, gave a statement to police the morning after Moyer's murder, in which she described three male assailants, none being Thomas.  The DA's office failed to bring her into court for the two Thomas trials, even though at one point she was in the same building for charges on an unrelated matter.  Although two bench warrants were issued for Fielding around the time of the first two trials, they apparently were not lodged for her.  Prosecutors at the time maintained she had left the area and could not be found.

No physical evidence linked Thomas to the crime, but he was convicted based on the testimony of two men, Willie Green and Charles Rowe, who were “found” by Detective James Ryan, a police officer who was not assigned to the district or the case.  These men testified that they were on the other side of the street and saw Thomas walk around Moyer's truck after they heard a gunshot.  Another witness, whose mother lives on the street on which the murder occurred, corroborated Fielding's version of events.  Detective Ryan has since been convicted of shaking down drug dealers and making illegal armed detentions.  In another murder case, he paid a witness $500 to provide false testimony against a defendant.  In May 2002, a judge overturned Thomas's conviction.  In Oct. 2002, Thomas died on PA Death Row, before a retrial could take place.  (City Paper)  [1/07]

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