Former PPD detective charged with helping girlfriend cover up murder

A former Philly homicide detective has been officially charged with helping his girlfriend attempt to conceal a 2013 murder, D.A. Seth Williams announced today.

Ronald Dove allegedly helped his former girlfriend Erica Sanchez conceal evidence after she murdered her ex-boyfriend, Cesar Vera, in September 2013 — even as his own unit was searching for Sanchez.

“He did everything he could to lie to other members of the police department homicide unit, to find out what they knew,” D.A. Williams said at a press conference Thursday.

Sanchez allegedly stabbed Vera in the heart, killing him, while at an after hours club in Kensington, then called Dove for assistance in hiding from authorities, according to the indictment.

Dove allegedly moved Sanchez’ car away from the crime scene, brought her to a Holiday Inn in upstate New York and paid for her room, and bought her a new a cell phone — all while Philadelphia detectives from his own unit were searching for Sanchez, whom several witnesses identified as Vera’s killer.

“He financed her flight to New York,” Williams said.

Dove did not “let anyone know where he had been, and that he in fact was with the prime suspect in a homicide here in Philadelphia, while other officers were scouring all over using resources, limited resources that taxpayers don’t have,” Williams said,

At one point while Sanchez was hiding, Dove took her on a weekend getaway to Niagara Falls, said Williams.

Sanchez turned herself in to face murder charges a month later. Dove was suspended in November, after the police department found that he had violated departmental policy.

“He has caused embarrassment to this City, this Department and his family because of his shameful actions,” Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said in a statement. “Dove’s conduct is simply intolerable and inexcusable.”

Williams and other prosecutors declined to comment on any of the other unsolved murders that Dove worked, saying that a grand jury is still hearing evidence on those cases.

Those murders include:

-Leslie Delzingaro, in July 2010

–Melanie Zee Colon, a woman killed in May 2012

-Reynaldo Torres, disappeared in May 2012 along with Colon. His jawbone was recovered by police in a playground in November 2013.

–Don Ly, a South Philly fruit vendor killed in April 2013