In the early morning hours of January 7, 2019, the quiet of a Kensington street in Philadelphia was shattered by a burst of violence that would leave two people dead and a third wounded. Inside a car with its engine still running, police discovered the bodies of 40-year-old Efrain Gonzalez-Rivera and 30-year-old Stephanie Rann. Gonzalez-Rivera, a Hispanic male from Wilmington, Delaware, had been shot in the chest, while Rann had suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
The grim discovery was made after a 32-year-old woman was found a few blocks away with a gunshot wound to her arm. She told investigators that she had been shot in the same area where the car was later found, but initially made no mention of the two deceased individuals. This omission led police to consider her a person of interest in the case.
The investigation into the double homicide pointed to a man named Kevin Brogden. A crucial piece of evidence that helped lead to his identification was surveillance video from near the crime scene. The footage captured Brogden running from the area and covering his head as he passed a grocery store, a route that led directly to his home just a short distance away. Investigators believed that only someone who lived in the immediate vicinity would have known to conceal their face from those specific cameras. The motive for the killings was determined to be related to drug sales in the Kensington area.
Kevin Brogden was arrested and charged with the murders of Efrain Gonzalez-Rivera and Stephanie Rann. In November 2022, a jury found him guilty of two counts of third-degree murder, as well as aggravated assault and weapons charges. Following his conviction, Brogden was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His subsequent appeal of the judgment of sentence was addressed by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in late 2024.
