Courts.
All three were friends, police said, and there is no motive in the slaying.
Two men were convicted of first-degree murder last week for shooting a Lower Providence man to death along the Schuylkill River Trail in West Norriton in March 2023, according to The Daily Local News.
Cody Kavon Reed, 24, of the 300 block of West Marshall Street, Norristown, and Marquise Alexander Johnson, 24, of the 500 block of East Johnson Street, Philadelphia, were convicted Thursday of first-degree murder, robbery, conspiracy, possessing an instrument of crime and fleeing police to avoid apprehension in Montgomery County Common Pleas court for killing Daquan Kennard Tucker, 25, who lived with his girlfriend on Rogers Road in Lower Providence, according to court documents.
Both men will receive life in prison, according to law.
“We’re happy that my brother Daquan Tucker got justice,” Kenyada Tucker, sister of the victim, told Daily Local News.
“He’s a good friend. He was very loyal. He was a very good person,” said Tucker’s mother Cicely McCarty.
Both murderers intend to appeal the conviction, per the report.
A jury in February were deadlocked in the defendants’ first trial after deliberating eight hours over two days, and a mistrial was called, per the article. The retrial began on June 3, per reports.
Tucker was killed with two gunshots to his head and one to his neck on the trail and took his cell phone, prosecutors said.
All three were friends and a motive for the killing is unknown and did not have to be proven by law. No murder weapon was recovered, police said, and there were no witnesses.
Reed and Johnson fled the area and were not caught until April 6, 2023 at an Airbnb on North Rhode Island Avenue in Atlantic City by U.S. Marshals.
According to a criminal complaint, a bicyclist came across a body in a wooded area between the trail and the Schuylkill River on the morning of March 3, 2023. Per the article, Tucker was found 100 feet away from the trail on a steep embankment, with two spent .40-caliber cartridges nearby.
Tucker had to be identified via fingerprints, because he had no ID or cell phone on him, per the report.
Read more details on the investigation and conviction here.
