August 21-27, 2003

city beat

Just Compensation

Scarred: Six months after Willie ìPeteî Kent was viciously slain in North Philadelphia, his daughter, Letrese, and her children still need answers. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

A City Paper inquiry fast-tracks crime-victim assistance for the family of an eviscerated North Philadelphia man.

by Brian Hickey

Nearly six months after her fatherís eviscerated body was found inside a decrepit, abandoned North Philadelphia shell, Letrese Bryant learned this week that sheíd finally receive state victim-assistance funds to help her pay for the funeral.

The news came just one day after City Paper calls to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) confirmed that Bryant's reimbursement had been delayed by paperwork snafus.

In a letter dated Aug. 11, the commission informed Bryant that she wouldn't be receiving the funds because they'd yet to receive a "final cause of death" from Philadelphia investigators. The correspondence went on to state that if documentation wasn't forwarded within 30 days, the case would be closed until the information was provided.

Even though the city Medical Examiner's Office determined in April that Willie "Pete" Kent was a homicide victim, that information -- along with police reports about the case -- inexplicably didn't make it to the agency charged with dispersing the funds. Confidentiality statutes kept commission officials mum about the specific cause of the delay, but it took a matter of hours for the problem to be rectified.

Bryant says she was told she needn't provide a death certificate since the homicide ruling got national attention, while Sgt. Roland Lee, a police department spokesperson, notes that the unusual nature of Kent's death made it more difficult to get the compensation issues addressed from an investigative standpoint.

The body of Kent, a 60-year-old who alternated living on the streets and at his daughter's home near Seventh and Hunting Park, was found inside 1520 N. Eighth St. on Feb. 28.

He was face-down under an old chandelier, pieces of wood and other debris. Police, called to the scene by homeless people who'd been searching for scrap metal, turned the body over and the case quickly entered the list of Philadelphia's most gruesome crimes. Kent had been cut from his neck to his stomach and his chest was ripped open. His heart, liver and kidney had been removed, as had part of his esophagus. A rope had been tied around his neck.

With none of Kent's blood being found at the scene, investigators believe the victim was killed elsewhere and dumped in the neighborhood where he worked at a corner bodega and sometimes lived. He was a beloved fixture, the "mayor" of the block.

About six weeks later, officials pinpointed "penetrating sharp force injuries" to his neck as a contributing factor to his death. (While police said Monday that they have nothing new to report, Bryant heard from people in the neighborhood that detectives are looking to question a man with the street name "Sleepy." Still, she says she rarely hears from police with updates anymore.)

The Victims Compensation Program, created in 1976 to help victims face crime-related financial burdens, disperses money from courtroom fines and state and federal funding. Available benefits include medical expenses, counseling costs, loss of earnings, loss of support, stolen-cash benefits, relocation expenses, funeral expenses and crime-scene cleanup costs.

Today, the PCCD gets roughly 4,500 claims annually, a number that's been increasing by about 25 percent each year since 1998 thanks to its outreach program. The average time it takes to process a claim is about 10 weeks.

"When they give this compensation money out, they need to think about a lot of different things. For one, they have to make sure no relatives were involved with the murder itself," Lee says, noting that a four- to six-month delay isn't unheard of in Philadelphia cases. "There are still a lot of questions to be answered. We have a pretty good idea of how he died but we still don't know who killed him or why, and that can cause delays [for compensation]."

Bryant, who learned of the program when she went to identify her father's body, asked the PCCD to help her cover the $5,000 funeral cost after having already spent $1,000 for the burial. Carol Lavery, PCCD's director of victim services, concedes that the details clearly indicated that Kent's survivors would be eligible, but the commission is legally bound to obtain certain information before dispensing funds.

"You can look at some cases and say, of course it's a crime, but the law doesn't give us the right to say it is on our own," Lavery says. "With many homicides, police are reluctant to send us reports until their investigation is complete. Sometimes, we have to pull it out of them."

Lavery said the City Paper inquiry, made on Bryant's behalf, "pushed" the process forward. Bryant hasn't been told exactly how much money she'll receive, something she'll learn when she receives a letter from the PCCD.

Still, it came as welcome news to a woman who's faced one tragic hurdle after another this year.

In January, her 36-year-old husband died of a heart attack in his sleep. A month later, she learned of her father's grisly death by seeing his blanket and sneaker at the crime scene on television.

The fact that police haven't made an arrest makes coping hard. Going past the crime scene on the route 47 bus makes it even harder. But caring for her four children -- including D'Juan, an 11-year-old who's confined to a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy -- with little income has proven nearly impossible.

She lost her temp-agency job in the weeks after Kent's death because she took too many days off to cope. (Today, she picks up hours when she can.) In June, the bank tried foreclosing on her rowhome, an effort staved off with the help of an attorney. Warily eyeing a Philadelphia Gas Works crew down the block the other morning, Bryant hoped they weren't coming by to disconnect her service again. "It's just embarrassing," she says, noting that the family briefly moved in with relatives because she couldn't pay the water bill.

Add to all that the fact that somebody has been regularly calling the state Department of Human Services claiming Bryant leaves her children unattended -- allegations both she and several neighbors vehemently deny -- and it's safe to say her life is in upheaval. (DHS has been to the house with police in tow on several occasions but hasn't taken any action against Bryant.)

"We're surviving off what we get," Bryant says, alluding to government assistance. "It's not enough that my father's dead? That my husband's dead? My worst enemies could at least have some compassion, wait for me to get back up on my feet. I just want to be with my kids, I just want to fix up the house. We have a life to live. We still have to live with everything that's happened."

Doing so has proven harder than they ever could've imagined. The children and their mother still face it every day. "When I see my mom cry," says 9-year-old Brittany, "it makes me want to cry."

Adds her younger brother, Dominic, who broke down in tears thinking about the deaths at a recent family barbecue, "I just miss my dad and my granddad."