Michael Kite, a 41-year-old male, was a former Philadelphia firefighter whose life ended violently in December 1984 after he was shot once in the head. Online sources place his death on December 14, 1984, in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, though later court and news accounts describe the case as unfolding across multiple counties after his body was found months later.
His remains were discovered in May 1985 in Ridley Township, Delaware County, wrapped in chains and left in a creek, a grim ending that suggested an effort not only to kill him, but to hide what had happened.
Authorities alleged that Kite was killed inside an apartment in Bensalem Township belonging to Lawrence Lines. The shooting was described as connected to an apparent dispute over a methamphetamine deal. By the time the case reached trial in Bucks County in 1986, prosecutors were pursuing Lines for murder, and he took the stand in his own defense. Lines told jurors that he did not know Kite and that he had not killed him, but the prosecution’s case pointed back to the Bensalem apartment, the fatal gunshot, and the drug-related conflict that investigators believed had led to Kite’s death.
The trial took a dramatic turn while the jury was deliberating. Lines had been free on $50,000 cash bail, and as jurors returned to ask the judge a question, he vanished from the Bucks County Courthouse. About 15 minutes before the jury convicted him, Lines disappeared, leaving law enforcement to search for him while the trial continued without him. The jury convicted him in absentia of first-degree murder, and the judge revoked his bail and issued a warrant for his arrest. Authorities searched his hometown of Columbia Crossroads in Bradford County, checked with associates and friends in the Philadelphia area, and alerted nearby airports.
Lines did not remain free indefinitely. He was apprehended on December 21, 1986, while post-verdict motions were still pending. Years of legal proceedings followed, including disputes over whether his flight from the courtroom should prevent him from pursuing appeals. In 1991, after post-verdict motions were denied, Lines was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder conviction. His later appeals and habeas petition focused heavily on procedural issues tied to his escape and claims of prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel, but the conviction and life sentence remained intact.
Lines was not the only person charged in connection with Michael Kite’s killing. Two other men, Robert Bell and Richard Lee Gray, both of Philadelphia, were also charged in the case. News accounts from the time reported that Bell and Gray pleaded guilty to murder and were awaiting sentencing while Lines’ trial was still unfolding. Their guilty pleas indicated that prosecutors viewed Kite’s death as involving more than one participant, though the available online material gives far more detail about Lines’ trial, disappearance, recapture, and sentence than it does about the final sentencing outcomes for Bell and Gray.
The case reads as both a homicide and a courtroom escape story. Michael Kite was killed in what authorities said was a drug-related dispute, his body concealed in a creek and weighted with chains, and the man later convicted of murdering him tried to avoid the verdict by slipping away before the jury returned. But the disappearance only delayed the inevitable. Lines was caught, brought back into the system, and ultimately sentenced to life in prison, while two other charged men had already admitted guilt in the murder.
