Love And Death The Story Of Myla Friedman And Bryan Edwards

Myla Friedman and Bryan Edwards looked like modern young lovers deeply involved in an old-fashioned romance.

The fashionably dressed couple dined at trendy Spring Garden restaurants and danced at popular Center City clubs, friends and acquaintances recalled. He would carry her law books, she would cook special meals for him, and they would cuddle in each other's arms when they watched television.

But those displays of affection hid a volatile disharmony, two of the couple's close friends said.

Those friends said Friedman, 24, a stunningly attractive, affluent and bright second-year Temple Law School student who was aggressively pursuing her career, and Edwards, 28, a handsome, streetwise sales clerk and college dropout who desperately wanted to become an independent businessman, were grossly mismatched.

Their three-year relationship came to a violent end at about 1 p.m. last Nov. 26 in the apartment they once shared on Green Street near 18th in Spring Garden.

Friedman and Edwards were both naked and in bed. Friedman fired a single shot from a stainless steel, .38-caliber Ruger pistol she had picked up from a gunshop four days earlier, fatally wounding Edwards in the neck at nearly point-blank range.

Police said Friedman told them that Edwards had forced her into performing oral sex and was terrorizing her with a knife when she shot him. But homicide detectives said they concluded that Friedman resorted to murdering her lover after realizing he was leaving her despite her "extraordinary" efforts to keep him.

These efforts included unspecified suicide threats, false police reports, and the firebombing of Edwards' car two weeks before his death, according to an 18-page affidavit filed in connection with Friedman's arrest on Jan. 12.

The two close friends said Edwards had physically abused Friedman in the past and believe she feared for her life on the day of the shooting.

Although police released Friedman after questioning her on the day of the shooting, her arrest on a homicide charge seven weeks later has shrouded the incident in mystery.

Those who knew the couple best - including the two close friends, who have spoken with Friedman since she entered a psychiatric hospital about two weeks after the killing - disputed the police view of the case.