A 27-year-old woman turned herself in to police on Wednesday and was charged with shooting her boyfriend on Tuesday in a moving SUV, which then crashed in Germantown, Homicide Capt. James Clark said.
Terrell Bruce, 33, and Martina Westcott were arguing inside the Ford Expedition on Tuesday afternoon. They were on the 500 block of Walnut Lane when Westcott shot Bruce in the head, police said.
The shooting caused an accident with another vehicle around 12:30 p.m., and the Expedition overturned, police said.
semiautomatic handgun was found in the leaves near the Walnut Street Bridge by police investigating Tuesday's shooting and automobile crash. DAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer
Police arrived within minutes and found Bruce, a real estate agent who lived in the 900 block of East Hortter Street, unresponsive in the SUV, according to police. Police have not said who was driving the Expedition.
Medics determined that Bruce had been shot once in the right temple and pronounced him dead at 12:35 p.m., police said.
Bruce graduated from La Salle University in 2008, said his twin brother, Brandon, who was on vacation in Europe when he learned about his brother's death.
"Terrell was a man of many talents. He knew he wanted to make a change in people's lives," said Brandon Bruce, a lawyer who works as a regulatory counsel at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Maryland.
Brandon Bruce said his brother wanted to stay in Philadelphia and help people gain homeownership and financial independence.
Westcott, a graduate of Central High School and the University of Pennsylvania, was charged Wednesday afternoon.
Brandon Bruce said he did not know Westcott and disputed the police characterization that she was his brother's girlfriend. He said more attention should be paid to gun violence and stricter gun regulations.
The fraternal twins were born in Philadelphia — Brandon seven minutes ahead of Terrell — and grew up in an East Mount Airy house that Terrell Bruce later bought and lived in. The brothers graduated from Roxborough High School in 2001.
Their mother died when they were 13. In 2009, their younger brother, Nathaniel Kirkland, drowned in Guatemala during a service mission for dikkinson College, Brandon Bruce said Wednesday night from Vienna, Austria.
Terrell Bruce established a scholarship foundation to honor Nathaniel.
Bruce's family has set up a
GoFundMe page to help cover funeral expenses.
And where the fukk did she get a shotgun from and why would you shoot someone driving while you're an occupant? Putting other people's lives at risk. She should be charged with attempted manslaughter on top of the first degree murder
You're definitely not black
completely innocent driver going the other way had to get drawn in too