Kathryn “Krystal” Person, a 71-year-old female, was living beneath the Mulberry Street Bridge in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when her life ended violently on the night of December 28, 2021. Police were called to the area after reports of gunfire and found Person dead at the homeless encampment where she had been staying. Her cause of death was determined to be multiple gunshot wounds.
The setting made the killing especially stark: a cold December night, a vulnerable encampment under a city bridge, and a victim remembered by people around her as someone who had endured hardship but still carried generosity and optimism.
Investigators recovered multiple shell casings at the scene. Those casings later became a key part of the case because they were described as distinctive, with an LVE headstamp and a rose or copper color. For more than two years, Person’s killing remained publicly unresolved while investigators continued working the case. The break appeared to come through a separate homicide investigation involving Harrisburg cab driver Kenneth Cobb, who was shot and killed near the city’s Amtrak station on March 27, 2022.
The suspect identified in Person’s death was Hezekiah Campbell, a Harrisburg man who was already accused in Cobb’s killing. In the Cobb investigation, police said surveillance footage showed a suspect approaching Cobb’s taxi and firing into it, and investigators tracked that person back toward Campbell’s residence. Authorities said they found a firearm and clothing connected to the cab driver case, along with a notebook in Campbell’s bedroom. According to reports on the charging documents, the notebook included statements such as “I shot him” and a reference to “killing again,” and police said Campbell acknowledged writing those statements.
In February 2024, Harrisburg police announced that Campbell had also been charged in Person’s death. Authorities alleged that he shot Person under the Mulberry Street Bridge on December 28, 2021. Police said both Person’s killing and Cobb’s killing occurred within walking distance of Campbell’s home, and reports on the affidavit stated that Campbell’s mother told investigators he often carried a gun when he went out walking after dinner. In Person’s case, Campbell was charged with criminal homicide and weapons-related offenses, including possession of a weapon.
Campbell was already incarcerated by the time the charge in Person’s case was announced. He had been arrested in 2022 in connection with Cobb’s death, and bail had been denied in that case. The later charge tied him to a second Harrisburg homicide, making Person’s case part of a broader pattern alleged by investigators: two separate fatal shootings, months apart, both in Harrisburg, both involving victims who appeared to be attacked in public places at night.
The case against Campbell grew even more serious after a later prison killing. In January 2025, while held at SCI Camp Hill, Campbell was accused of attacking and fatally stabbing fellow inmate Spencer Kassel in a recreation yard. Reports stated that Kassel died despite life-saving efforts, and Campbell was charged with first-degree and third-degree murder in that case. Prosecutors later moved to seek the death penalty in the prison homicide, citing the circumstances of that killing. As of the available reports, Campbell was awaiting trial on the Harrisburg homicide charges connected to Person and Cobb while also facing charges in the prison killing.
