Killing robs state of its key witness

Chante Wright wanted to help her boyfriend, who faced 25 years in federal prison for dealing crack. In a deal to cut his sentence by two-thirds, she put her life on the line, agreeing to identify the triggerman in an unrelated murder case.

Wright's testimony was so crucial and so fraught with danger that she became the first state witness in Philadelphia to enter the federal witness-protection program. U.S. marshals gave her a new identity and moved her to Florida.

"The system worked. Well, it would have worked - if she had followed the rules," said a source close to the case. "She's a nice girl who made a bad decision to come back to the neighborhood. Did it get her killed? Probably."

Wright, 23, was killed in Philadelphia early Saturday, seven hours after she arrived from Florida to visit a gravely ill grandmother, on a trip home that authorities had strongly discouraged and that they now suspect led to her death.

“Remarkable. She was only here a few hours,” said another official involved. “It sounds like an execution.”

Wright was slain roughly six weeks before she was scheduled to testify in Common Pleas Court in the murder trial of Hakim Bey, who is charged with the 2000 killing of Moses Williams.

Wright was expected to be the key witness against Bey, who allegedly is a member of what police described as one of the city's most violent drug organizations.

Now that Wright is dead, Bey's lawyer, Joseph C. Santaguida, said he thought prosecutors would be likely to drop state murder charges against Bey.

"I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I don't know how they can make a case without her," he said, adding that his client had nothing to do with the killing.

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham declined to comment on the fate of the Bey trial or on the Wright slaying. "We'll have to see what comes of the investigations," she said.

Other law enforcement officials familiar with the Bey case and Wright's killing spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the homicides and the confidential nature of the witness-protection program.

"Obviously, someone knew she was coming back," a third law enforcement official said. "We don't have all the details yet, but people who enter witness protection are given parameters. They know they can't be guarded 24/7."

Police still don't know whether Wright's death was related to the Bey case. But one law enforcement source said: "I've been doing this for a long time, and I don't believe in coincidences."

Wright was slain along with another 23-year-old Philadelphia woman, Octavia Green, who lived on North Lambert Street.

According to police, Wright's body was found shortly after 2 a.m. on a street in Grays Ferry near 32d and Tasker Streets. Green's body was found in a car nearby.

Details were sketchy, but both women had been shot a number of times, police said, adding that they had no suspects.

"Brutal, just brutal," an investigator said.

Near the crime scene, still stained with blood yesterday afternoon, was a makeshift shrine with balloons and a large stuffed toy dog.

At one point, two bearded men wearing black jackets and sunglasses emerged from a black car pulsing with rap music. Each scrawled "RIP" on the memorial, then drove away.

Charles Reeves, 66, stood on the corner and shook his head: "These kids are getting totally out of whack," he said.

Other neighbors were reluctant to talk about the shooting. "I didn't see nothing," one said. "I don't know what you're talking about. . . . You heard me the first time? I didn't see nothing!"

A woman who was headed to a house where a group of relatives appeared to be gathering said "Shant," as she was called, was "a beautiful child."

Wright aspired to open a beauty shop one day, acquaintances said. She was proud that her preschool son was already reading by age 3 and that he had done some modeling.

One person recalled Wright as a feisty, tattooed woman who had a penchant for getting in barroom scuffles.

"She fashioned herself as street-smart, but she really wasn't," a law enforcement source said. "It's too bad for us that she was such a hard-headed girl. She would have made a great witness."

Wright was 15 on Sept. 20, 2000, the night she was riding in a car with Moses Williams and three other people. An assailant opened fire on the car, leaving her unhurt but killing Williams.

Wright gave a statement to police, and Hakim Bey was charged in 2003 with Williams' killing. Another witness, bystander Omar Morris, was also slain. That killing remains unsolved.

Wright later withdrew her cooperation and the case against Bey collapsed. Two law enforcement sources said she told them that she had received threats.

Bey's lawyer said Wright simply recanted her statement, saying police had told her what to say. Within a year, prosecutors dropped the charges and freed Bey, with the caveat that the case could be brought again if new information surfaced.

Wright stayed silent until last year, sources said, when her boyfriend, facing 25 years in federal prison on crack-distribution charges, made a deal with state and federal authorities. Because of Wright's cooperation, a judge sentenced her boyfriend to eight years in federal prison.

In May, acting on a promise from prosecutors that Wright would now testify, Common Pleas Court Judge Renee Caldwell Hughes reinstated murder and three dozen related charges against Bey, setting a trial date of March 10.

Prosecutors and judges said witness intimidation is epidemic in Philadelphia, especially in homicide cases.

In one notorious case, South Philadelphia drug dealer Felix Summer was convicted in 2006 of shooting and killing Charlotte Pressley, a witness against him in another homicide.

Police also believe witness intimidation was the motive for a 2004 arson that killed six people: the mother of a witness against another drug killer, the witness' niece, and her four children.

Several years ago, federal authorities offered to put the most vulnerable state witnesses in the federal witness-protection program.

Last spring, Wright entered the witness-protection program, which is operated by the U.S. Marshals Service's highly secretive Witness Security unit. The program has relocated more than 7,000 people in nearly 40 years and officials said no one who has followed their security guidelines has ever been harmed.

Steve Blando, a Marshals Service spokesman, said he could not comment on specific cases, including people no longer in the program.

Several sources said that the program relocated Wright to Jacksonville, Fla., and gave her a new identity - Chante Jackson - but that she missed friends and family in Philadelphia.

Law enforcement officials said she broke strict no-contact rules, making calls to Philadelphia. She was warned and given several second chances, and was officially withdrawn from the witness-protection program shortly before she was killed.

After learning that her grandmother was near death, Wright flew to Philadelphia on Friday. She got to the airport at 7 p.m. and was dead by 2 a.m.

Early yesterday, a family friend said, Wright's grandmother died.