AS HUNDREDS of mourners poured into a cavernous auditorium at Holy Ghost Headquarters on North Broad Street on Monday morning, police implored the public to help crack the case of two teen boys violently gunned down on a Fairhill street last week.
"We can always use the public's help. A lot of people saw it, and we just need someone to call and tell us what they saw," Homicide Capt. James Clark said, adding that a $40,000 reward is offered for information leading to an arrest.
Police say cousins Dexter "Bigg" Bowie, 17, and Johnathan "Bird" Stokley, 18, were joyriding through their neighborhood on what cops said was a stolen all-terrain vehicle last Monday night, when someone pulled an AK-47 assault rifle and fired at least 30 rounds at them, fatally wounding both teens on 9th Street near Cambria.
Relatives told the Daily News over the weekend that the boys had borrowed the ATV from a neighborhood friend.
In the wake of the killings, cops said they believed the boys were targeted. Clark said investigators are still exploring theories, but declined to elaborate.
He said that both had prior contact with police, but that he could not give details.
Family members said Bowie recently had recovered from being shot six times Jan. 5 a few blocks from where he was gunned down last week. They said they suspect the same people who shot him then are responsible for his and Stokley's deaths.
Bowie's mother, Malika "Renne" Tillman, 42, said that her son had had a truancy problem and that recently a drug-possession charge against him had been dropped, but that he wasn't a troublemaker.
"My son never did anything to make someone want to hurt him like that. He was a good kid," she said, clutching a plaque the teen was awarded for community service in 2010.
Tipsters should call the Homicide Unit at 215-686-3334 or the police tip line, 215-686-8477.
Contact Morgan Zalot at 215-854-5928 or zalotm@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @morganzalot. Read her blog, "Philly Confidential" at www.phillyconfidential.com.
