The Kingsessing mass shooter gunned down residents at random over a mile stretch, prosecutors say

Philadelphia Police Officer Ryan Howell sprinted down South Frazier Street, frantically searching for the source of the gunfire.

“Body! Body!” he yelled as he came across 29-year-old Dymir Stanton, lying in the street.

Colleagues ran to Stanton’s aid. Howell kept searching.

“Where did he go?” he asked frantically running around the corner. He scanned a backyard with his flashlight, then turned to illuminate a narrow alleyway — and saw a pair of legs.

Standing in the pathway was Kimbrady Carriker, a rifle at his side and pistol near his feet — the guns that prosecutors say Carriker used to shoot and kill five people and injure multiple others in early July in the city’s Kingsessing section.

The sequence, recorded on Howell’s body-worn camera and played in court Tuesday, displayed for the first time the distance police say Carriker, 40, traversed as he gunned people down, and the disarray officers encountered as they faced a nearly mile-long crime scene and a gunman who was actively shooting more people as they responded.

“They were running toward the danger without regard for their own safety, just trying to do everything they could to stop this man from killing more people,” Assistant District Attorney Robert Wainwright said of responding officers.

And the evidence shared in the nearly two-hour preliminary hearing — a collection of surveillance video and emotional witness testimony — laid bare what prosecutors described as Carriker’s cruelly random behavior that summer night in what became one of the deadliest mass shootings in Philadelphia’s history.

“All in all, he basically walked the distance of a mile, calmly, coolly, and just as he is going, at various points, he points his assault rifle and fires,” Wainwright said. “We still don’t have the answers. ... We really don’t know what caused him to fire on certain people and not others.”

Prosecutors say Carriker killed five people: DaJuan Brown, 15; Lashyd Merritt, 21; Dymir Stanton, 29; Ralph Moralis, 59; and Joseph Wamah, 31.

Municipal Court Judge Christine Hope held Carriker on all charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, and illegal gun possession, allowing his case to head to trial. Carriker is being held without bail at a Delaware County prison, and is undergoing mental health treatment.

Initially, investigators thought Carriker killed all five people in the same night. But, in an unusual twist, detectives later determined that Carriker had actually killed Wamah Jr. 44 hours before he returned to the same block nearly two days later and shot the others.

Wainwright on Tuesday presented video that he said showed Carriker, wearing a ballistic vest and camouflage ski mask, walking down the sidewalk near 56th and Chester Streets just before 8:30 p.m. Rifle in hand, Carriker appeared to pass by children playing in front of their homes — before suddenly stopping to take aim at random people, prosecutors said.

Carriker’s first victim was Wamah, who lived on the 1600 block of South 56th Street with his father, police said. Carriker came to Wamah’s home shortly after midnight on July 2, Wainwright said, then fired multiple shots through the front door before entering and shooting him numerous times.

It remains unclear why Carriker targeted Wamah.

Nearly two days later, just before 8:30 p.m., Wainwright said Carriker returned to that block with the same AR-15-style rifle, a ghost gun. First, prosecutors said, Carriker fired more than a dozen shots into the Jeep of Octavia Brown, a young woman driving her 2-year-old twins and 10-year-old niece to a family barbecue.

One of Brown’s sons was shot multiple times in the leg, and the other twin suffered a graze wound to his forehead. Glass shards exploded into Brown’s eye. The boys survived their injuries, but Brown’s car was totaled and the family traumatized.

» READ MORE: How a mother and her twins survived the Kingsessing shooting

Carriker continued down South 56th Street, Wainwright said, until he came across a 13-year-old boy and shot him multiple times in the legs.

Police Officer Natasha Chestnut said she was responding to the shooting when 15-year-old DaJuan Brown flagged her down and said his friend had been shot. He led her to the 13-year-old, crouched behind a car, screaming for help.

Chestnut said DaJuan told her he was going to get his family, but as he crossed the street, prosecutors said, Carriker shot DaJuan multiple times, killing him.

Chestnut, through tears, testified to how she swept the bleeding 13-year-old into her arms, trying to get him to safety — but could not reach DaJuan.

“I couldn’t save him,” she cried.

The 13-year-old remains shaken and walks with a limp, Wainwright said, as one of his legs shorter than the other, a metal rod holding it together.

As Carriker kept walking, he came upon Ralph Moralis, getting out of his car, and shot him multiple times, Wainwright said. Then, as he reached Greenway Avenue, he said, he came to face Lashyd Merritt leaving his home, and shot him. Both men died.

Carriker then turned up South Frazier Street, Wainwright said, where he shot and killed Dymir Stanton.

He walked three more blocks before Officer Howell ultimately found him tucked in the alleyway.

“Good job,” Howell said Carriker told him as he took him into custody.

“I’m out here helping you guys,” Wainwright said Carriker told another officer. Law enforcement sources have said Carriker told police that the shooting spree was an attempt to help authorities address the city’s gun violence crisis, and that God would be sending more people to help.

Carriker’s defense lawyers presented no evidence Tuesday and declined to comment on the case. At one point, they asked Howell whether he found Carriker to be sane that night — an indication that they could take an insanity defense approach down the line. The judge did not allow the question to be answered.

And Carriker, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, stared straight ahead through most of the afternoon. He had previously been found mentally incompetent to stand trial, but his lawyers said Tuesday that he is now medicated and receiving treatment, and is prepared to move forward with the case.

It was Carriker’s first time in court — and the first time victim’s families were able to face him in person. Emotions inside the courtroom were high, and at one point, the father of one of the victims tried to move closer to more clearly see the surveillance video of his son’s killing being played. But after a sheriff’s officer told him to sit down, a confrontation followed, and relatives were pushed out of the courtroom as screams echoed down the hallway.