West Philly man who murdered ex-girlfriend and unborn child given 2 life sentences after avoiding death penalty

A Montgomery County judge on Tuesday sentenced Rafiq Thompson, the man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend Tamara Cornelius and their unborn child, to two consecutive life sentences and at least 18.5 additional years in prison, after he avoided a death sentence last week when a jury could not reach a decision.

Thompson, 40, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and an additional 18.5 to 37 years in prison Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said.

He was found guilty on Sept. 13 of two counts of first-degree murder and related crimes in the deaths of Cornelius, 31, and their unborn child. Thompson shot Cornelius four times at close range at an Exxon station in King of Prussia in April 2022, killing her while she was four months pregnant.

The jury took less than two hours to reach a verdict on Thompson’s guilt for the murders. But Friday afternoon, after nearly six hours of deliberation, the jury could not reach an unanimous decision on a potential death sentence and Montgomery County Judge William Carpenter dismissed them, handing down a sentence Tuesday.

Niels Eriksen, one of Thompson’s attorneys, argued against the death penalty, saying that Thompson was not “somebody that’s the worst of the worst,” and should not be executed.

That defense was refuted by Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, who argued that Thompson’s “cloak of innocence” had been stripped away by the guilty verdict.

Cornelius’ younger sister, Ta’Naya Dunlap, said that while she initially thought it would be fair if Thompson were sentenced to death for the killing of her sister and her unborn child, she ultimately came around to believing that life in prison thinking about the murders served as the harsher punishment.

“I think we’re just grateful that at the end of the day, we are getting justice for our sister,” she said following last week’s trial.

If a death sentence was handed down, it would have been unlikely Thompson would be put to death.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has called on the state legislature to abolish the death penalty and has said he will refuse to sign any death warrants.

The last execution in Pennsylvania was in 1999, when Gary Heidnik was put to death by lethal injection. Heidnick raped and tortured six women he kept chained in the basement of his Philadelphia home, then killed and dismembered two of them.

Ninety-nine people are on death row in Pennsylvania, according to a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections list. Three were convicted in Montgomery County, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office said.