TIFFANY GILLESPIE'S boyfriend wasn't happy that she was pregnant with his baby, so early yesterday he shot the 24-year-old mother of two in the head, leaving her dead in the basement of her South Philadelphia home, police said.
Gillespie's mother found her at 2:40 a.m. with a single gunshot wound and called police to the house, on Mildred Street near Ritner. Gillespie's two young children and other family members were in the house at the time of the slaying, police said.
"Immediately, detectives focused on her boyfriend, Aaron Fitzpatrick, with whom she's had a tumultuous relationship for several months," Homicide Capt. James Clark said yesterday.
Based on the couple's history, Fitzpatrick, 19, was a suspect from the outset, Clark said, and he was arrested yesterday. He was expected to be formally charged last night.
"They had been arguing over the last 24-hour period," Clark said. "He was upset with the fact she was pregnant with his baby, and killed her as a result."
Bill Boyle, a neighbor of Gillespie's, said he and his wife, who both work nights, were unloading cleaning supplies for their business on the block early yesterday when Gillespie's mother bolted out of her two-story, red-brick rowhouse screaming, " 'My daughter's dead! My daughter's dead!' "
Neighbors said Gillespie had a preschool-age daughter and an 8-year-old son, and told them she was six months' pregnant.
