On the night of December 9, 2020, Zamir Abdullah, a 19-year-old male, was driving a 2009 Pontiac G6 through Chester, Pennsylvania, when what first looked like a crash scene became the start of a murder investigation. Police were called around 9:29 p.m. to the area of 500 West Sixth Street for an overturned vehicle with someone trapped inside. When officers arrived, they found Abdullah unresponsive in the driver's seat after the car had flipped onto its driver's side door.
He had been shot in the head.
As officers worked at the crash scene, two passengers who had fled from the vehicle flagged down police near West Ninth and Barclay streets. One of them had been shot in the abdomen and foot. All three people from the car were taken to Crozer-Chester Medical Center. The two passengers survived, but Abdullah died at the hospital. Investigators later treated the case not as a traffic accident, but as a shooting that had ended with Abdullah's wounded vehicle continuing down West Sixth Street before overturning.
Authorities said the violence began during a planned drug-related meeting that turned into a robbery. Investigators recovered an approximately one-pound package of marijuana from the front passenger side floor of the car. According to accounts described by authorities, two men walked up to Abdullah's vehicle and positioned themselves on opposite sides of it. One of them was identified as Anthony Jordan, also known as “Backdoor Phat,” and the second was identified as Kysir Brokenbough of Claymont, Delaware. Police said Jordan approached the passenger side and allegedly tried to take the marijuana before gunfire erupted.
The shooting happened quickly. Surveillance footage from the area showed two suspects walking toward the car, standing on opposite sides of it, and then running north along the 600 block of Butler Street after shots were fired. Abdullah's car then continued east on West Sixth Street before crashing and overturning. Detectives used additional surveillance footage to track the suspects' movements before the shooting, and witnesses helped identify the men in the videos as Jordan and Brokenbough. Investigators also relied on witness statements, digital evidence, social media information, and the physical evidence recovered from the scene.
Anthony Jordan, of the 2300 block of West Ninth Street in Chester, was arrested first. He was initially charged with first-, second-, and third-degree murder, conspiracy, robbery, aggravated assault, firearms offenses, and attempted murder-related charges tied to the two surviving victims. At the time, Brokenbough was still being sought as the second suspect. Authorities described him as a Claymont, Delaware man and asked the public for help locating him.
Brokenbough remained wanted for months until U.S. Marshals arrested him in Claymont, Delaware, in September 2021. After his arrest, he was taken to the New Castle County Police Department and later waived extradition. Authorities said he was held without bail while the case continued. With Brokenbough in custody, both accused men were facing prosecution in connection with Abdullah's killing and the injuries to the surviving passengers.
The case ultimately ended with guilty pleas rather than a trial. Anthony Jordan and Kysir Brokenbough each pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, aggravated assault, robbery, and conspiracy to commit robbery. Each man was sentenced in Delaware County Court to 20 to 60 years in prison for the December 2020 murder of Zamir Abdullah.
