"Kill what they love" was Savage's goal
By John P. Martin
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The murder and racketeering trial of accused drug kingpin Kaboni Savage entered its final phase Monday much as it opened three months ago: with photos of the North Philadelphia family killed in a 2004 firebombing that prosecutors say Savage ordered to retaliate against a witness.
As jurors glimpsed once more at television screens with the smiling images of 54-year-old Marcella Coleman, her 15-month-old grandson, and four other victims, Assistant U.S. Attorney John M. Gallagher played snippets of jailhouse recordings in which Savage seethed and vowed to punish cooperators by attacking their children and mothers.
" 'I'm going to kill what they love' - that was his guiding philosophy," Gallagher said.
The prosecutor's remarks launched what could be three days of closing arguments in the case against Savage, his sister Kidada Savage, and two others.
Savage, 38, is accused of overseeing a vast and violent network that for a decade flooded North Philadelphia corners with drugs and relied on beatings, shootings and killings to silence competitors or others who threatened the operation.
"They created a climate of fear, and in that climate, the defendants were able to thrive," Gallagher told the jurors.
Savage is charged with committing or directing a dozen murders, including the deaths of five rival drug dealers, and a man who had bumped his car in their Hunting Park neighborhood.
But the centerpiece of the case is the firebombing that killed the mother, son and four other relatives of Eugene "Twin" Coleman, one of Savage's top associates who had agreed to testify against him. Officials have called the October 2004 attack among the most heinous examples of witness retaliation in city history.
Gallagher opened his summation by recounting the testimony of a veteran firefighter who climbed through the scorched remains of the Coleman house after the predawn firebombing. In a second-floor bedroom the firefighter was stunned to find the body of Coleman's cousin, 34-year-old Tameka Nash, sprawled on the floor in a vain attempt to protect a child. Under her he found the body of Coleman's 15-month-old son, Damir Jenkins.
"That home had become a tomb for the Coleman family," Gallagher said.
Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if Savage is convicted of the murders. His codefendants, Steven Northington and Robert Merritt Jr., also face the death penalty if convicted for their alleged roles in murders. Savage's sister faces life in prison.
Savage, a onetime professional boxer with a shaved head and beard, sat through the prosecutor's statement with pen-in-hand and head down, as he has done through much of the trial.
He chose not to testify, but jurors have heard hours of his voice. Prosecutors introduced his testimony from a 2005 drug trafficking trial and scores of jailhouse conversations secretly recorded by the FBI, many of them talking about "rats" and how he dreamed of punishing them.
"Kids count to me," he said in one tape played by Gallagher. "I'm killing what they love."
Savage's court-appointed lawyers don't dispute his drug dealing. He's already serving a 30-year-term for trafficking.
But they have tried to sow doubt as to his role in the murders, casting his comments as jailhouse bravado, noting that he never specifically claimed credit for the Coleman killings, and challenging the credibility of the former associates who have testified against him in the case.
One of his lawyers, Christian Hoey, is expected to start his closing statement late Monday or early Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick told jurors they could get the case later this week.
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