INQUIRER: A former stripper turned soccer mom, convicted of plotting with a South Jersey man to kill her fiance, was sentenced yesterday to 99 years in prison. Mechele Linehan, 35, was convicted of murder last year for orchestrating the murder of an Alaskan fisherman she had promised to marry. In January, John Carlin 3d, a love-lorn steelworker from Salem County, was sentenced to 99 years for shooting Kent Lippink outside Hope, a tiny mining community an hour from Anchorage. Linehan ordered Carlin to kill the fisherman, prosecutors said. The exotic dancer believed she would be the beneficiary of a $1 […]

PHILADELPHIA – April 2, 2008 (WPVI) — Police say there has been a possible break in a deadly SEPTA attack. Authorities have four young men in the homicide unit on the verge of being charged in the fatal attack that claimed the life of a Center City coffee shop manager. Right after the attack police arrested a 16-year-old boy, and were looking for four other suspects. Now, police believe as many as six people were involved in the subway attack. It was a week ago today that 36-year-old Sean Conroy [NOT pictured] was attacked at the subway platform at 13th […]

INQUIRER: A 20-year-old Philadelphia man was attacked and forced to put on handcuffs in a room at the upscale Chestnut Hill Hotel, then got free and fought with his assailant down an elevator and into the lobby of the historic inn last night, police said. Akiva Israel, 24, of Middletown, N.J., was arrested after the bizarre incident and is expected to be charged with aggravated assault, false imprisonment and related offenses, police said this morning. The two men have known each other for several months, police said, and met at or went together to the hotel, which is popular with […]

Worship service to commemorate the 40 year anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s death (and in resolution to continue the struggle for civil rights and economic justice). Security guards throughout the city face the problem of low wages and insufficient benefits. AlliedBarton is the largest security company in our city and employs 87% of the guards in Philadelphia. 97% of the private security guards in Philadelphia are African American. Like the black workers in Memphis in 1968, security guards face systemic oppression. Like the black workers in Memphis in 1968, we want to unite and stand up for our families.

[photos by JUSTIN ROMAN] EDITOR’S NOTE: The Valley of the Shadow is an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The object is to cast Philadelphia’s disadvantaged in a new light, brighten the darkest corners and gather-and-share compelling personal stories of loss, grief and remembrance. BY JEFF DEENEY On the corner of 52nd and Larchwood, across from West Philadelphia’s vibrant and thriving Malcolm X Park, on the south facing wall of the Food Plus corner store, […]