Logan community reacts to ‘outrage’ of pregnant woman’s murder

Residents talk on the corner where a pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed on Tuesday night in Logan. Credit: Charles Mostoller

The day after a pregnant woman and her baby were slain in a shooting outside an Logan deli that left her boyfriend in critical condition, neighbors expressed anger and sorrow over the violence.

The victims in the shooting around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning outside a deli at 20th and Nedro streets had not been identified as of press time.

But neighbors said the female victim was 25 years old, and the male victim was her boyfriend. Neighbors said they had one child together, and were expecting their second.

It’s the second time a pregnant woman and child have been shot to death in two weeks in Philadelphia.

“It’s an outrage,” said Santee Weddington, 44, who said he saw the shooting from his window across the street. “I don’t feel safe around here anymore.”

He described seeing the male survivor run across the sidewalk firing back at the shooter before collapsing wounded, while his car, with the female victim in the front passenger seat, rolled onto the curb in front of the deli and stopped.

Weddington heard about 12 shots, he said. The female victim was reportedly hit six times.

Cynara Watson, 38, who grew up in the neighborhood, said the shooting has made her feel unsafe.

“Now, I don’t want to raise my daughter around here. It’s a totally different area from when I was growing up,” Watson said.

“We have shootings every now and then, but not like this … It’s at my corner store now, so it’s really hit home,” she said.

“When I look at the last few days, I feel sad in my heart because this has been relatively a decent stable neighborhood,” said pastor Willie Singletary, a former Traffic Court judge, who grew up a few doors down from where the shooting took place, citing four homicides in the past three days in the area.

“You got, Sunday morning, four o’clock, a double-shooting, double-homicide [outside a Fern Rock social club], you got Monday afternoon, at three o’clock, a shooting, in a mix of kids getting out of school [outside Albert Einstein Medical Center.] And you got last night, a mother and a child, and another person being shot. It’s a tragedy,” Singletary.

The shooting closely follows the death of Megan Doto, 26, who was eight months pregnant when she was killed by a stray bullet in Frankford on Sept. 14. Devon Guisherd, 27, is wanted by police in connection with Doto’s death.

Doto’s baby was delivered in an emergency C-section, but only lived for 12 hours.

The baby of the woman who died early Wednesday was also delivered, and just lived for an hour.

As of press time no arrests have been reported in the death of the unnamed female victim in Logan.