How many crimes are connected to the killing of Josh Kruger?

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Josh Kruger and his cat, Mason.

We have fairly extensively covered the murder of homosexual and homeless advocate Josh Kriger in Philadelphia:

Once the allegations that the 39-year-old Mr Kruger had been sexually involved with his 19-year-old alleged murderer, since the (alleged) killer, Robert Davis, was 15 — in Pennsylvania, the age of consent is 16, not 18 — the story changed fairly dramatically. All of the ‘tributes’ for Mr Kruger suddenly dried up. If any sexual activity took place while Mr Davis was 15, Mr Kruger would have been, under Pennsylvania Title 18 §3122(1)(b), guilty of a first-degree felony. Mr Kruger was a minor celebrity in Philly, and had a lot of friends, including Mayor Jim Kenney. Among those who followed him on Twitter were District Attorney Larry Krasner, the District Attorney’s Office, Inquirer editorial writer Daniel Pearson, and CNN’s Jake Tapper. Now that Mr Davis’ family are telling us that Mr Kruger was a sexual predator, essentially a chickenhawk, and everyone seemed to just keep their mouths tightly shut.

I had at least wondered if the claims by Mr Davis’ family were meant to get him a dramatically reduced charge, or even let off, since no one likes a child molester, but now The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that Mr Davis was not a very nice guy even before he, again, allegedly, killed Mr Kruger:

Robert Davis, accused killer of Josh Kruger, is also charged with a shooting at a SEPTA station in September

Davis, 19, is accused of firing a gun at SEPTA’s Tasker-Morris station on Sept. 25. No one was injured.

by Ellie Rushing | Monday, October 30, 2023 | Updated: 12:29 PM EDT | 2:49 PM EDT

Robert Davis, the 19-year-old accused of killing Josh Kruger, has also been charged with attempting to shoot someone at a SEPTA station in September.

Davis was arrested last week and charged with murder after police said he entered the home of Kruger, 39, earlier this month and shot him three times, killing him.

Court records show he now faces a string of additional charges, including aggravated assault and illegal gun possession, stemming from a shooting at SEPTA’s Tasker-Morris station on Sept. 25 — just days before he allegedly killed Kruger.

According to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest, Davis approached a man from behind on the platform around 5 a.m. and “attempted to reach around him.” When the man tried to fight back, the report says, Davis pulled a gun from his waistband and fired it once in the man’s direction. No one was struck, and Davis fled the station, the affidavit said.

There’s more at the original.

Mr Davis is being represented by the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which provides legal services to the indigent, and considering how high-profile this case is, at least within the City of Brotherly Love, they’ll have their top people on this. It will almost certainly be argued that if Mr Davis was the person who shot at a victim in a SEPTA station, it was because he was under the same distress that caused him (allegedly) to shoot Mr Kruger.

Mr Davis was on the lam for a couple of weeks, before he finally surrendered to police.

After more than two weeks on the run, Robert Davis returned to his family’s South Philadelphia home, sneaked inside through a back window, and asked his brothers for help.

He arrived Wednesday night acting erratically, said Davis’ older brother Jaylin Reason, and appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. His mother, Damica Davis, said her 19-year-old son was having a mental breakdown, fearful of the reality he’d come to face: murder charges for allegedly killing Philadelphia journalist Josh Kruger earlier this month.

Apparently Mr Davis was unwilling or unable to get out of town, and was high on something, which raises other obvious questions: from whom did Mr Davis obtain drugs and/or alcohol — remember: Mr Davis was not yet of legal age to buy booze — and from where did a man on the lam for two weeks get the money to purchase intoxicants? Aiding Mr Kruger to elude capture is itself a third-degree felony under Title 18 §5105(b). From whom did Mr Davis obtain the firearm he allegedly used? Back to the originally cited story:

The records say text messages between Kruger and Davis also suggested Davis had done work on Kruger’s basement before, and had broken his window and stolen multiple guns from him in the past — incidents that had not been reported to police. And content on the phone also indicated the two were in an intimate relationship, the records say.

Were Mr Kruger’s “multiple guns” legally purchased? Did he have permits for them?

It’s not just the murder of Mr Kruger: everything about this story is crime after crime after crime, by the alleged killer, possibly his family, and his victim. Drug possession and use, buying methamphetamines from some dealer, possible sex by a 35-year-old male with a 15-year-old male, some form of assault followed by attempted murder in a SEPTA station, hindering apprehension and prosecution, breaking and entering, theft of a firearm (Title 18 §3903(a)(2), a second-degree felony), alleged sexual blackmail by Mr Kruger (Title 18 §3133), and on and on and on.

Isn’t it amazing how the story of this killing has metastasized into multiple crimes?

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