D.A. drops murder charges against Chester teenager

CHESTER » The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office has withdrawn charges against a 14-year-old boy for the January 2020 shooting death of 79-yearold Robert Womack.

“We have determined at this time that the commonwealth would be unable to substantiate these charges … and we would like to withdraw the case as it is right now,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Hill told Magisterial District Judge Walter A. Strohl at a preliminary hearing date last week.

Zhafir Tinsley-Jones turned himself in to police Jan. 31, 2020, with attorney Bill Davis Jr., and was arraigned on first- and thirddegree murder, among other charges. He was not eligible for bail and had been in custody since that time.

According to an affidavit of probable cause for TinsleyJones’s arrest written by Chester Detective Joseph McFate and Delaware County Detective Vincent Ficchi, Chester Police Officer Sean Mullen was dispatched to the area of West Third Street and Highland Avenue about 4:58 p.m. Jan. 29, 2020, for a report of shots fired.

Officer Joshua DiSylvestro was also in the area and was stopped by a pedestrian who pointed him to a car crash at the intersection of West Third and Wilcox streets in Trainer Borough, about seven blocks away from Highland, according to the affidavit.

Mullen responded to the crash site and found Womack in the driver’s seat area of a gray Chevrolet Impala, suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to the back of the head. Paramedics from Crozer-Chester Medical Center arrived on the scene and attempted to treat the victim, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officers returned to the area of the original shots fired call at Highland Avenue and West Third Street and set up a crime scene, where Crime Scene Investigator William Swanson found five 9mm spent cartridge casings and three .45-caliber cartridge casings, according to the affidavit.

Two witnesses stopped on the 200 block of Trainer Street also provided information to police. They claimed to have been in the car with the victim at the time of the shooting.

One witness indicated they were in Womack’s Impala on the 2700 block of West Third Street when a group of four males walked toward the vehicle. The witness said one of the males said, “There they go right there,” according to the affidavit.

The witness said one of the males who he knew as “Z” pulled a black handgun from his waistband and began firing at the Impala. The witness ducked down as Womack began to drive away from the scene, according to the affidavit.

The second witness also reported hearing one of the males say, “There they go right there, get em,” before also seeing “Z” produce a black handgun and begin firing at the car, according to the affidavit.

The second witness also ducked down as the car traveled on West Third Street toward Trainer, according to the affidavit. The second witness looked in the back seat and asked if the first witness was OK before noticing Womack was bleeding from the mouth, the affidavit says.

It was then that the second witness, realizing the victim was unresponsive, attempted to steer the car and put it in park, according to the affidavit. Both witnesses exited the vehicle to call for an ambulance and remove Womack from the Impala, but the vehicle pulled off again at a high rate of speed toward Trainer, according to the affidavit.

Both witnesses ran after the vehicle toward the crash site. Upon arrival, one of the witnesses said Womack was covered in blood and appeared to be dead.

Detectives put together photo arrays of eight people that included pictures of Tinsley-Jones, according to the affidavit. Both witnesses positively identified Tinsley-Jones as the shooter from those arrays, the affidavit says. He was in custody within 24 hours of Chester City Police releasing his photo to news organizations.

Shortly after his client’s arrest, Davis said Tinsley-Jones was maintaining his innocence and maintained that he was not even at the scene. Davis did not return a call for comment on this story.

Hill indicated during the brief hearing before Strohl April 1 that he and Assistant District Jason Harmon had spoken to the victim’s family and the Chester Police Department. After an ongoing review of the case with Chester police and the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division, he said the office would not be pressing charges against Tinsley-Jones “at this time.”

Hill indicated the investigation is ongoing.