In the early morning hours of July 17, 2021, a fateful encounter on a Philadelphia street ended in the tragic death of Anthony Jones. After exiting a diner at 140 South Street, Jones approached Ahkil Crumpton. The interaction, captured on a nearby surveillance camera, escalated when Crumpton retrieved a Glock 43 pistol from a vehicle. As Jones turned and began to run away, Crumpton opened fire, firing 13 shots that ultimately killed him.
The Philadelphia Police Department responded to the scene, collecting the spent 9mm shell casings as evidence.
The investigation into Anthony Jones's murder took a significant turn thanks to the ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. The shell casings from the Philadelphia shooting were submitted for analysis and matched to a firearm used in another murder that had occurred four months earlier in Oconee County, Georgia. In that case, on March 19, 2021, a RaceTrac gas station clerk named Elijah Wood was shot and killed during a robbery. This ballistic link connected the two murders to the same, yet unidentified, suspect.
The trail eventually led law enforcement to Ahkil Crumpton. On the morning of March 16, 2022, a team of FBI and ATF agents moved in to arrest Crumpton in Philadelphia on a murder warrant from Georgia. In an attempt to evade capture, Crumpton jumped from his bedroom window but was apprehended by an FBI SWAT team after a chase. Inside his bedroom, investigators discovered a Glock 19 pistol, which ballistics confirmed was the weapon used to kill both Elijah Wood and Anthony Jones. They also found clothing Crumpton had worn during both homicides and a loaded AR-15 rifle.
