Gwen Anderson, 29, a Black female from Philadelphia, was working behind the bar at Studio 7 Lounge and Restaurant at 60th and Spruce streets in West Philadelphia on the night of September 26, 2018, when the violence unfolded. She was a young mother of two and a bartender remembered by friends as warm, friendly, and always smiling. Around 10:15 p.m., while she was inside the lounge, a 52-year-old man who police said knew her from the bar walked in and began speaking with her.
According to
police accounts, the man had made advances toward Gwen before, and she had refused him. During their exchange that night, he pulled out a gun and opened fire. Investigators said he fired at least nine shots, striking Gwen at least seven times in the head and chest. Officers who were already on patrol nearby heard the gunfire and saw the man running from the bar east on Spruce Street. When they entered Studio 7, they found Gwen suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. She was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 10:32 p.m.
The suspected gunman fled only a short distance. Police said he ran toward nearby houses, then shot himself in the head and collapsed on the sidewalk. Officers found a handgun beneath or near his body. He was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in critical condition. Police did not publicly identify him in the available reports, and they described the relationship between him and Gwen as unclear beyond saying that the two knew each other.
In the hours after the shooting, the corner outside Studio 7 became a place of grief. Friends left balloons and a teddy bear in Gwen's memory. One friend, John Nelson, described her as a good-spirited person who was welcoming and kind, the kind of person whose presence people noticed and whose loss left them shaken. The bar itself did not publicly comment on the shooting.
The available reports describe the case as an attempted murder-suicide. No arrest, charge, trial, or conviction was reported in the sources found, likely because the named suspect was not publicly identified and was last reported in critical condition after shooting himself. Police treated him as the alleged gunman, recovered the handgun at the scene where he collapsed, and said Gwen was killed by a man she knew from the bar after he opened fire inside the lounge.
