Two life terms for two lives

"CALL HIM what he is."

That's all Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy asked of Common Pleas Judge Steven Geroff in his closing arguments yesterday during the double murder trial of Darren Williams.

"Give him the moniker, the title, he has so rightfully earned," Conroy said. "That is first-degree murderer."

And so, Geroff did. After a four-day bench trial, Geroff found Williams, 26, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the Aug. 6, 2013, shotgun deaths of Sean Neal, 23, and Lauren Fenningham, 18, inside of Neal's house, on Sebring Road near Shelly in Northeast Philadelphia.

Then, Geroff sentenced Williams to two consecutive life terms in prison.

The evidence against Williams was damning and included the dying declaration of one of his victims to a responding paramedic.

According to evidence and testimony presented by Conroy, Williams was acquainted with Neal and was in his house on the day of the shooting, showing off a sawed-off shotgun. Williams intended to rob Neal for more guns but when that went awry, Conroy said, he shot Neal once in the abdomen and Fenningham once in the head, leaving behind a gruesome crime scene.

Fenningham died instantly but Neal was still alive when paramedics arrived. He told them that Darren Williams, whose nickname is "Buddha," shot him with a shotgun.

In Williams' version of events, Neal was playing recklessly with the shotgun, which accidentally went off and struck Fenningham. Williams then claimed he wrestled for control of the gun with Neal, who pulled out a second shotgun.

"Now we have a Quentin Tarantino scene where two guys are leveling guns at each other in the living room," Conroy said in his closings. "It's like a scene out of 'True Romance.' "

Conroy called Williams' version of events "hogwash." In his closings, defense attorney Gary Server said nobody knows what happened inside the house that day, and he argued that the prosecutor did not prove the shootings were malicious or intentional.

"What we have here is an unfortunate confluence of gun possession, the use of drugs and alcohol and foolish horsing around," Server said.

At the afternoon sentencing in a packed courtroom, Fenningham's father, John Kevin Fenningham Sr., told Geroff: "Lauren would light up the room with her laughter. I don't hear that anymore.

"I go to Lauren's room each morning and say, 'Lauren, you have to get me through the day,' " he said.

"When Williams goes into jail, and it clangs," he said, banging his hand against the wooden bar of the jury box, "I hope he sees the horror that he caused. I hope someday he has pure misery in his head."

Joseph Rogowski, Neal's uncle, told the judge the murders were "senseless."

"Nobody wins, everybody loses," he said.