A Scam Begets a Murder
(“Dollars and Sense,” Forensic Files)
When people kill for a small amount of cash, it’s only natural to think: Couldn’t they just make money via fraud instead so no one gets hurt physically?
In what sounds like a Sopranos subplot, a trio of young pals in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, started out to do just that.
Fraudster friends. Wesley Person, Justin Glover Jr., and Lawrence Murrell Jr. would persuade a fourth party to apply for an auto loan, divide up the money, and never buy the car.
The Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union couldn’t recoup the funds by seizing the vehicle because there was no vehicle. The conspirators carried out more than a dozen of these scams, defrauding lenders out of a total of $115,000 to $120,000.
Unfortunately, the men’s shenanigans took a horrible turn, which Forensic Files recounted in “Dollars and Sense.”
Shifty move. In 2005, Wesley Person’s partners in crime discovered that he’d quietly completed a scam worth $15,000 to $20,000 and neglected to share the proceeds.
andonline
Person, age 26, barely had a chance to enjoy the new shoes he bought himself at the Sneaker Villa in Harrisburg: Murrell and Glover killed him on the day before Christmas.
They defeated the purpose of their business model. Instead of easy money, the two men received life sentences.
Horrible sight. For this week, I looked for epilogues on Murrell and Glover. They were in their early 20s at the time of the murder, so I was curious to find out whether they got any breaks.
But first here’s a quick recap of the episode along with information drawn from internet research:
On Christmas Eve of December 2005, motorists spotted flames alongside Route 83 near Baltimore, Maryland. They came from a body that had been set on fire.
That’s my BF. Although the corpse had been badly burned, the skull along with a patch of the victim’s braided hair gave a reconstructionist just enough to work with.
A woman named Keisha Walker recognized the police artist’s drawing as her boyfriend, Wesley Person. (Note: He appears to be no relation to either of the NBA players of the same name).
Person was born on August 31, 1979, and attended Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls High School, whose alumni included science fiction author Isaac Asimov and Shirley Chisolm, the first black woman elected to Congress.
Hardest-working scammer. Although Person wasn’t exactly chasing greatness, he didn’t make a whole lot of trouble either. He moved to Pennsylvania and started keeping company with Lawrence Murrell Jr., 21, and Justin Glover Jr., 24.
If anything, Murrell sounded like he should have been a good influence. He was married, worked full time as a janitor for the Harrisburg school district, and was taking college courses. In his spare time, he bought and renovated houses.
Murrell and Glover, the third member of the trio, “were partners in several rental properties in Harrisburg,” according to a Pennlive.com article, which also notes that Glover was a father.
That’ll be cash. But for whatever reason, honest entrepreneurship wasn’t enough, and Murrell, Glover, and Person started the auto loan scams.
The last day anyone saw Person alive was shortly before Christmas. He had gone shopping with a big wad of 50s and 100s.
His buddies Abdul McCauley and Stephen Aikens witnessed him having a heated discussion with Murrell and Glover in the parking lot afterward.
Police theorized that Murrell and Glover took Person to the basement of one of the properties Murrell owned and shot him three times in the head.
Detritus divulges. At the site where the duo left Person’s burning body, investigators found some plaster and other detritus that matched the debris in Murrell’s house at 441 South 13th Street in Harrisburg.
On February 19, 2008, Murrell and Glover were found guilty of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, and abuse of a corpse.
Glover got a life sentence for the homicide and 11 to 22 years for other charges. Murrell received life without the possibility of parole plus additional time.
They are both still fighting to get out.
Legal maneuvers. In 2014, a superior court upheld Glover’s conviction. He then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus based on contentions including ineffective counsel for failing to object to the use of “unverified cell phone records,” failure to impeach Abdul McCauley, and the possibility that Keisha Walker “had motive to commit the crime.”
Glover contends that Aiken should have testified for the defense that he heard Keisha Walker — Person’s girlfriend — say that Person “got what he deserved” because of some bad blood between the two lovebirds.
License to work. Glover also contended that his own girlfriend Christina Hughes should have been allowed to testify that they were watching a movie together during the time of the murder.
In August 2017, U.S. District Judge Richard Conaboy denied Glover’s petition.
For now, Glover resides along with 2,183 inmates in the maximum-security Fayette State Correctional Institution in Labelle, Pennsylvania. It’s the only prison in the state where license plates are made.
At 6-feet-5-inches, Glover probably doesn’t have to worry about being bullied out of his commissary items.
Chance of freedom. Murrell, who is serving his sentence in the medium-security Dauphin County Prison, has had better post-conviction luck.
Although the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied his 2010 petition for allowance of appeal, he won the right to an evidentiary hearing in 2018.
Murrell’s court papers contend that he had ineffective counsel who failed to call character witnesses and that the plaster found on Wesley Person’s body could have come from a different property. Murrrell also alleges that Abdul McCauley’s testimony for the prosecution was tainted because Dauphin County had given him favorable treatment for an unrelated drug offense.
Rehab your life and house. No word on how the evidentiary hearing turned out or whether it has even been scheduled yet. As of this writing, Murrell remains behind razor wire.
Murrell and Glover are still young — 34 and 37 — and have plenty of time to explore legal avenues to freedom.
They also have skills that would enable them to start legitimate real estate careers, although the two should probably forget about their partnership and go their separate ways if they get out of prison on two feet.
Incidentally, the 5-bedroom 1-bath row house where Wesley Person met his end is up for sale for $69,100.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
Watch the episode on YouTube and Tubi
