Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Video Captures Woman Being Executed in Philadelphia By Serial Killer

Transcript

Video Captures Woman Being Executed in Philadelphia By Serial Killer · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so imagine this. You're living your life, working, feeling
• 0:03
  safe in Center City Philly, you know, going about your
• 0:06
  day to day, and then suddenly, bam, this brutal murder
• 0:09
  just shakes everything up. It happened back in two thousand
• 0:12
  and five, and this case is the one we're diving
• 0:15
  into today. Is so much more than just figuring out
• 0:18
  who doing it. We're talking twists, surprises, and you know,
• 0:21
  all those big questions about justice, how we see the world,
• 0:24
  and like what's really going on beneath the surface of
• 0:27
  what we think is normal life.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is fascinating. You have Center City, this
• 0:32
  historic area known for being pretty safe, and then all
• 0:34
  of a sudden, boom, it's the backdrop for this awful crime.
• 0:38
  It makes you wonder, doesn't it, like, about how safe
• 0:40
  any place really is.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: It really does. And then the center of this whole
• 0:43
  thing is Patricia McDermott. She was just a regular person,
• 0:46
  working mom in X ray tech at Pennsylvania Hospital, just
• 0:49
  trying to live her life. No one had a bad
• 0:51
  word to say about her. She had a loving family
• 0:53
  like she do, you know, just one of us.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: And that's what makes it even more disturbing, right, like
• 0:58
  it could happen to anyone. It just it shatters that
• 1:00
  idea that it only happens to certain types of people
• 1:03
  or in certain places. The randomness, the brutality, it's chilling.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, So it's May seventeenth, two thousand and five, early morning.
• 1:11
  They find McDermott's body face down on the sidewalk, and
• 1:14
  not just anywhere near the rocky steps, shot in the head,
• 1:18
  execution style. I mean, talk about a messed up contrast.
• 1:22
  This symbol of hope and then this horrible violence.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost symbolic, isn't it, the city's image and
• 1:27
  then this grim reality. And it wasn't like it happened
• 1:30
  in some dark alley way either. This was broad daylight,
• 1:33
  a busy area. I mean, the person who did this,
• 1:35
  you gotta wonder, were they just that bold, like they
• 1:37
  didn't care about getting caught.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: You would not believe this. But at first they actually
• 1:42
  suspected her husband because well, he had a criminal record,
• 1:46
  but the security footage cleared him pretty quickly, which of
• 1:48
  course just makes the whole thing even more mysterious.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's often where they start right looking at people
• 1:53
  closest to the victim. But in this case, it was
• 1:56
  a dead end. So then it's like, Okay, who else
• 1:59
  could have wanted to hurt this woman and why?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And those first few weeks of the investigation it must
• 2:04
  have felt like looking for a needle in a haystack.
• 2:07
  They had this grainy surveillance video from the post office
• 2:10
  near the scene, and get this, they even called in
• 2:13
  NFL films to try to make it clearer NFL films.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Wow, that shows how badly they wanted to solve this.
• 2:19
  I mean, reaching out to experts in a completely different
• 2:22
  field just for a blurry video. That's commitment.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: And even with all that, they still couldn't id the shooter.
• 2:29
  But there was one good thing they found. A spent
• 2:32
  point three to eight zero cartridge. Might not seem like much,
• 2:36
  but in a case like this, every little bit helps.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, And that kind of cartridge is interesting.
• 2:42
  It tells us the killer probably used a small gun,
• 2:44
  something easy to hide, you know, could hit in a pocket.
• 2:47
  So now we're starting to get a picture, right, like
• 2:49
  what kind of person this might be?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Right, So now they're looking at everything about McDermott's life,
• 2:54
  her routine. She took the Septa bus from Montgomery County
• 2:58
  into the city every day, and that's where things take
• 3:01
  a turn.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: This is where good old fashioned detective work comes in.
• 3:05
  Every step, every person she might have interacted with, gotta
• 3:08
  check it all out.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And that's how they find Onan Covington. The bus driver
• 3:12
  identifies him as a fellow passenger. He used to work
• 3:15
  for Septa, got off at the same stop as McDermott
• 3:17
  that morning. And here's where it gets really interesting.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So the bus driver mentions that Covington had like some
• 3:24
  anger issues. And get this, he was really interested in
• 3:28
  another SEPTA driver, Brenwanda Smith, and she well, she disappeared
• 3:33
  a while back.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Wait, a missing SEPTA driver. Now I'm thinking, could there
• 3:36
  be a connection. This just got a lot more complicated.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It did, and it's about to get even more intense.
• 3:41
  So now they've got this guy, Juan Covington, a former
• 3:43
  SEPTA worker, right on their radar. It's been weeks since
• 3:47
  Patricia McDermott was killed, and they need something solid, some
• 3:51
  real evidence to tie him to the murder. And then,
• 3:54
  wouldn't you know it, Covington gets arrested.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Oh really, what four?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Not for murder? Actually, he was carrying an illegal gun,
• 4:02
  a nine millimeter serial number filed off. Talk about a
• 4:06
  lucky break for the investigators.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Hunh wow, Yeah, that's the kind of thing that could
• 4:10
  easily get overlooked. But it turned out to be huge.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So they're questioning him now. Remember Covington worked for a
• 4:16
  company that handled hospital waste. His route it included Pennsylvania Hospital,
• 4:22
  the same place McDermott worked. Starting to see how it
• 4:25
  all comes together.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, those pieces are definitely falling into place now.
• 4:28
  So he was actually at the hospital on the day
• 4:30
  of the murder.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yep, and the police they waste no time. They pull
• 4:35
  the hospital security footage and there he is, clear as day,
• 4:39
  same clothes as the guy in that blurry post office video.
• 4:42
  I mean, it's him, case closed right, well, not quite
• 4:46
  see Covington. He confesses to killing McDermott, but he says
• 4:48
  it was self defense. He claimed she aimed an X
• 4:52
  ray machine at him zapped him with radiation. Sounds crazy, right.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely not your average self defense claim. I mean,
• 4:59
  it makes you wonder about his mental state, doesn't it Exactly?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And it turns out Covington had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, that certainly adds a whole other layer of
• 5:08
  complexity to this, doesn't it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: It does. So then there's that nine millimeter, the one
• 5:12
  he was arrested with, and this is where the whole
• 5:14
  thing blows wide open. Turns out that gun it connected
• 5:18
  him to other murders and shootings. Covington wasn't just responsible
• 5:23
  for McDermott's death. We're talking serial killer territory.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Now, whoa So? Who else did he target the victims?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: It's a mix of people. Reverend Thomas Lee Devlin, a
• 5:33
  guy named Odie's Boskett, just walking down the street minding
• 5:37
  his own business. And there were two others who survived,
• 5:40
  David Stewart and William Bryant. They searched Covington's place and
• 5:44
  found a whole arsenal handgun's rifles. It's scary to think
• 5:47
  what he might have been planning.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So we've got a reverend, someone just out walking, a
• 5:50
  hospital worker. It's hard to see a connection. A reason
• 5:53
  he'd pick these people. What was his motive?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Well, during questioning, Covington said Reverend Devlin had put a
• 5:59
  curse on him, curse again, and he thought the other
• 6:01
  victims were devils that he had to you know, get rid.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Of So he was acting on these delusions, these warped beliefs.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Tragic, and it makes you think about that missing SEPTA
• 6:11
  driver Brenwanda Smith. Could Covington have been involved in her
• 6:15
  disappearance too? He never said anything.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: About her, so many unanswered questions.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine, you know, someone like Patricia McDermott
• 6:24
  just going to work and then becoming a victim like
• 6:27
  that makes you think about how fragile things really are.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It does. Yeah, you think you're safe, but then something
• 6:33
  like this happens and it really shakes you up.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And then there's Covington just living his life, seemingly normal,
• 6:39
  but then turning out to be this, this serial killer. It's
• 6:42
  just it's unsettling, to say the least.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: It really shows how little we can know about what's
• 6:48
  going on inside someone's mind.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So after all of this, the investigation, the trial, where
• 6:53
  do we even begin to understand what happened?
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Well, one thing that strikes me is that this case
• 6:58
  shows how our life can intersect in such unexpected and
• 7:01
  sometimes tragic ways. Patrician McDermott just living her life and
• 7:05
  then it's taken from her, just like that, it's.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So sad to think about her family, everyone who loved her,
• 7:11
  and the families and the other victims. They have to
• 7:14
  live with this too.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And we can't forget about Brenwanda Smith, that missing SEPTA driver.
• 7:20
  Her case is still open, no answers.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: This whole thing has been a wild ride. It's a
• 7:25
  case that really makes you think about the world, you know,
• 7:28
  the good and the bad, and how we make sense
• 7:30
  of it all.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely makes you question things.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: So Covington. He ended up getting twenty to forty years
• 7:36
  for the assaults and three life sentences no parole for
• 7:40
  the murders.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: A heavy sentence, but it reflects the seriousness of the crimes.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: This case really stays with you. It makes you think
• 7:48
  about things you'd rather not But maybe that's important, you know, Yeah,
• 7:51
  I think so. It reminds us to be aware, to
• 7:54
  look out for each other, and to maybe try to
• 7:57
  understand those who are struggling. So, what do you think
• 8:00
  about mental health and the justice system. How can we
• 8:03
  help people who need it while also keeping everyone safe.
• 8:06
  These are tough questions, but they're worth thinking about if
• 8:08
  you're interested in learning more about this case. There's a
• 8:11
  lot of information, online, articles, documentaries, all kinds of stuff.
• 8:15
  And remember, if you or something you know is dealing
• 8:18
  with mental health issues, there are resources available to help.
• 8:21
  Don't be afraid to reach out. Thanks for joining us
• 8:24
  for this deep dive, and until next time, stay curious
• 8:27
  and stay safe.