Kathy Ann “Kat” Stewart, a 49-year-old Black/African American woman from Chester, Pennsylvania, was killed after gunfire erupted outside the William Penn Homes on the night of Sunday, November 15, 2009. She was in a second-floor bedroom inside her mother's home on the 300 block of Franklin Street, reportedly talking on the phone with her fiancé, when a bullet tore through the wall and headboard and struck her in the head.
Her fiancé realized something was wrong when she suddenly stopped speaking, called the house, and a family member found her unconscious. Stewart was taken to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where she died early Tuesday morning, November 17, 2009.
The shooting appeared to have grown out of a street dispute that had nothing to do with Stewart. Police said gunfire broke out as two suspects allegedly tried to settle a score for an injured friend, and the intended target fled. As shots continued, one of the rounds entered the home where Stewart was staying while caring for her mother, Marietta Andrews, who had cancer. Investigators recovered about a dozen shell casings from the gun battle outside, and authorities said surveillance cameras at a nearby church captured footage connected to the shooting.
The impact of the killing was immediate and public. Stewart was described as a mother of three and grandmother of four, and her family's grief unfolded in the same neighborhood where the shots had been fired. At a police announcement outside the William Penn Homes, nearly 100 residents gathered and applauded when authorities said arrests had been made. Her sister, Sunday Hollman, said she had not expected police to solve the case so quickly because other shootings in the area had gone unresolved.
Police arrested Dominique Smith, 19, of Trainer, and Abdul Azzia Johnson, 17, of Chester. Johnson was charged as an adult. Authorities charged both with criminal homicide, first-, second-, and third-degree murder, and other offenses, and they were ordered held without bail at the Delaware County jail. According to police accounts reported at the time, witnesses helped investigators identify the suspects, their clothing, a burgundy Mercury Grand Marquis connected to Johnson, and the weapons believed to have been used, described as a 9mm handgun and a. 40-caliber handgun.
Johnson's arrest drew further attention when, after being charged, he briefly escaped custody during transport to the Delaware County prison. Police said he was handcuffed when he got into the front seat of an unmarked police vehicle, drove away from the jail area, led officers back toward Chester, and crashed into the porch of a home near 6th Street and Highland Avenue. He was quickly taken back into custody, and the district attorney launched an internal investigation into how the escape happened.
The available reporting identified Smith and Johnson as the arrested suspects and detailed the charges filed against them, but the online sources reviewed did not provide confirmed trial outcomes, convictions, acquittals, plea resolutions, or sentencing information in Stewart's death. What the sources do show is that investigators considered Stewart an unintended victim: she was not the target, she was inside a bedroom, and the fatal shot came from a gunfight outside that spilled through the walls of a home where she had simply been caring for family.
