He puts a gun to her head. He pulls the trigger. He runs.
That would not be the sum of it - because she appears not to have been the first for Juan Covington.
Covington, authorities say, is a serial killer, but without the Hollywood glamour, the taunting notes to media or police, or even a distinguishable pattern.
Since he was charged with this killing on July 14, the tally has mounted. To date, Covington, 43, of the city's Logan section, has confessed to three slayings, including McDermott's, police said. They have linked weapons he owns to two other shootings, assaults that left the victims riddled with bullets but alive. He may be connected with a fourth slaying, and the disappearance of a woman who would not date him.
Because, Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson said Friday, before Covington's arrest police saw little reason to make a connection between the killings and assaults. The victims came from different backgrounds, were shot by different weapons, encountered their assailant under different circumstances.
"These have been random shootings with no motives," Johnson said. "The hardest crime to solve is when there is no motive."
Covington had no police record and had done nothing to draw the attention of law enforcement. He held jobs - as a SEPTA bus driver for 18 years, and then as a medical waste hauler visiting area hospitals.
Some neighbors described him as quiet and easily offended.
But on the surface, at least, as Johnson put it: "He acted like any other citizen."
Those closest to him say they have long known that something was desperately wrong with Covington.
So wrong, in fact, that family members intervened in 2003 when Covington's son said he wanted to leave his mother's home and move into Covington's home.
His brother, James, stepped in during the ensuing family argument.
Although James Covington and other immediate family members did not respond to requests for comment, Peruto said they have told him that Juan Covington's problems began in 1990, after the death of his father. Covington became depressed and began taking medication to offset his dark moods, Peruto said.
A few years later, Covington pronounced himself cured with no further need for medication. But his behavior soon became disturbing, the lawyer said.
Covington would don military fatigues, creeping around his neighborhood as if hunting quarry seen only by him. He would go days without bathing or grooming. One Christmas, he gazed at the family's decorated tree and said he thought it was moving.
He was convinced that people were trying to harm him. He told his brother he could not trust certain people because they were "possessed."
Bullets from the 9mm pistol that killed Bosket also shattered two other men in two separate assaults. David Stewart, 43, was shot nine times as he walked in Logan in May 2003. William Bryant, 33, was also shot nine times, as he walked in Logan one morning in April 2004.
On both occasions, the assailant stood over his victim and fired repeatedly. Both men survived.
Investigators say they are eyeing Covington as a suspect in two other crimes.
In May 2004, Ann Yuille, a 25-year-old mother of five, was shot and killed. Her body was found in a lot near Ninth Street and Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia. Like McDermott, she worked in a hospital and may have encountered Covington on the job.
Brenwanda Smith, 24, was last seen by her family in February 1997. The Cheltenham woman was a SEPTA driver, like Covington, and he had a romantic interest in her, which she rebuffed. Before Smith disappeared, she and Covington had argued in a SEPTA yard in Hunting Park.
At his preliminary hearing Wednesday, a detective read from Covington's confessions. In them, he said he killed McDermott because "it was about me being a male... so I shot her when I had the opportunity."
Police say they have no idea how many more such "opportunities" Covington took.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/12207031.htm
