Center City pimp who chopped up man's body is sentenced

A COMMON PLEAS judge yesterday sentenced a Center City pimp who chopped up a man's body with an ax, then dumped the victim's torso in the Schuylkill to 22 to 44 years in state prison.

The sentence was negotiated by the prosecution and defense in exchange for Keith Tolbert's April 9 guilty plea to third-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and conspiracy to commit robbery in the 2013 death of victim Francis Zarzycki, 40, of Somerton.

The day after the guilty plea, Judge J. Scott O'Keefe heard victim-impact and other statements during the first part of a sentencing hearing. And on that day, Tolbert, 35, met privately with police and lawyers and allegedly disclosed what he had done with the victim's unrecovered body parts.

The judge deferred imposition of his sentence to yesterday to give police time to search. Assistant District Attorney Brian Zarallo said after yesterday's brief hearing: "We have not been successful in locating any additional body parts, but efforts continue."

Police sources said Tolbert alleged that he had put the victim's head in a black trash bag, then dumped it in the Schuylkill; the victim's arms and legs in a trash chute outside Tolbert's apartment building on 11th Street near Locust; and threw the ax in the Delaware River. The sources said those areas were recently searched, but nothing was found.

It was Aug. 26, 2013, when Zarzycki went to Tolbert's apartment to have sex and do drugs with two women, Angel Weston and Stephanie Foulke.

Instead, Tolbert and the two women conspired to rob Zarzycki. That night, they zapped him with a Taser. As the two women struggled with Zarzycki in an effort to bind him with duct tape, Tolbert sat on top of Zarzycki, who was lying facedown. Zarzycki then stopped breathing.

In his bathtub, Tolbert chopped up Zarzycki's body with the ax. About a week after Zarzycki - the son of a retired Philly cop - was murdered, a boater found Zarzycki's butchered torso inside a bag floating in the Schuylkill.

- Staff writer Lara Witt

contributed to this report.