Police and prosecutors, who described Thomas' flight from the restaurant, said he had every reason to be frightened. Another witness in the murder case, a 17-year-old, had been killed 10 days after testifying at a preliminary hearing. They said Thomas worried that he could be next.
Witness intimidation pervades the Philadelphia criminal courts, increasingly extracting a heavy toll in no-show witnesses, recanted testimony - and collapsed cases.
"It's endemic. People are frightened to death," said District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham. "We've had witness after witness intimidated, threatened, frightened."
And the city cannot guarantee their protection.
"That fear, that's real," said Jamie Egan, a former city prosecutor. "When people would ask me if I could guarantee their safety, I would say, 'Unfortunately, I cannot.' "
Abraham has long fought for more money to protect and relocate witnesses in criminal cases. For 15 years, she has repeatedly complained, to no avail, that the city's program was underfunded and failing to meet a crucial need.
Local funding for witness relocation is a fraction of the spending in the vaunted federal witness-protection program. Efforts to pump city money into the local program have failed year after year.
As the problem has grown worse, state funding - the main source of financial help for Philadelphia witnesses - has nose-dived.
Though court cases often drag on for a year or more, the city requires witnesses to sign a contract that limits help to just four months. While Abraham said her office made exceptions to that rule, she added: "We have finite resources. . . . We have lots of need and few bucks."
The widespread fear is warping the rules of engagement in the courtroom.
