After two trials, man pleads guilty to 2016 Christmas Eve killing of South Philly matriarch

It’s been nearly seven years since 81-year-old Marie Buck was shot dead Christmas Eve morning in the South Philly grocery store she ran for decades.

In that time there was a trial that ended in a hung jury, a retrial that ended in a murder conviction that was reversed on appeal, and then another retrial set to start this week.

On Monday afternoon, the aftermath of the tragedy finally came to a close when Maurice Green pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and related offenses.

Green, 38, was sentenced to 24 to 40 years in state prison on the murder charge and on a gun charge, and fined $6,500.

“To shoot an unarmed, helpless 81-year-old woman … over a fight over a necklace is incomprehensible,” Common Pleas Judge Glenn Bronson said Monday.

» READ MORE: Neighborhood baffled by shooting death of grocery owner

Prosecutor Joanne Pescatore said Green killed Buck in a botched attempt to settle the score with Buck’s grandson, Robert, who had conspired with Green’s on-and-off girlfriend to steal his gold chain worth $5,500. The pair — both of whom had been buying drugs from Green — pawned the chain and used the money to purchase heroin. Buck’s grandson was meant to work in the store that morning but had overslept. Green sprayed the store with gunfire just before 9 a.m. Christmas Eve, hitting Marie Buck 10 times.

Green expressed remorse in court Monday — a change in tone from his previous two trials, during which he represented himself. He said he couldn’t bear to look Buck’s family in the eye.

“I don’t know no other way how to say I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to give,” he said. “An arm, a leg, I would give.”

Green recalled growing up down the street from Marie’s Grocery and buying sandwiches there.

“I feel as though she haunts me at night,” Green said of Buck.

Green was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder in 2019 — his second trial, after the first ended in a hung jury — and sentenced to life without parole, but the sentence was reversed in 2021 by Pennsylvania Superior Court. The appeals court ruled that Common Pleas Judge Sandy Byrd should not have allowed prosecutors to present evidence about a previous crime they said Green committed though he was never arrested for it or convicted of it.

Pescatore, who has been on the case since the beginning, called the case “a sad commentary on drugs in this city.”

The Buck family, she said, “just want this over with.”

Buck’s family sat together in the courtroom, some crying during the proceedings.

“I just don’t think I could’ve went through another trial,” said Buck’s daughter, Marie, who was named after her mother.

Marie Buck, 62, lives with her 87-year-old father, Michael Buck, two doors down from what used to be Marie’s Grocery and is now a medical office. Her mother’s first name, though, is still visible over the door: “Marie’s,” it reads.

“I miss her more than life itself,” she said.