Jeanette Walton, 37, a Black / African American female, was killed on May 9, 1972, in Chester, Pennsylvania, after a shooting inside her apartment at 715 West 3rd Street. The available online reporting places the attack on a Tuesday night and describes the scene as one discovered not by police first, but by her 17-year-old daughter, Diane, who came home after visiting a relative and found her mother lying in a pool of blood around 8:50 p.m.
Police soon focused on Russell Matthews,
identified in the reporting as a 34-year-old Chester city resident from the 600 block of West 3rd Street. Investigators said information gathered at the scene led them to Matthews, who was apprehended a short time later at his father’s home on Franklin Street by Patrolman Gradie Berrien. The report states that Matthews was charged with homicide in connection with Walton’s fatal shooting.
The available online sources do not provide a fuller account of what led up to the shooting, whether Walton and Matthews knew each other, what evidence police said connected him to the killing, or whether a firearm was recovered. The surviving online article fragment identifies the charge and arrest but does not include a motive, a confession, witness account, or further investigative narrative.
No reliable online source found in the search results provided details of a trial, plea, conviction, acquittal, dismissal, sentencing, or later punishment for Russell Matthews in connection with Jeanette Walton’s death. Based on the available online information, the documented case outcome stops at Matthews being arrested and charged with homicide after Walton was found fatally shot in her West 3rd Street apartment.
