Voluntary Manslaughter

University of Pennsylvania professor Rafael Robb pleaded guilty yesterday to the bludgeoning death of his wife, Ellen, saying that he was sorry but had "just lost it" as they argued in their Upper Merion home on Dec. 22. In a Montgomery County courtroom strained with tension, Robb, 57, acknowledged for the first time that an argument over Christmas vacation plans disintegrated to the point where he grabbed an exercise bar and "started flailing" at...

The neighborhood was upset that there was a crack house on the block, but that was no reason for one neighbor to start shooting, killing one man, when the place caught fire last Aug. 14, the prosecution argued. Curtis L. Hester, 33, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter yesterday by Common Pleas Judge Lisa A. Richette in the killing of Dexter Stewart, 23, who had fled the fire. The prosecution had sought a murder conviction. Hester claimed he fired into the air to frighten the men he saw outside his house on Upland Way near 54th Street, at about 4 a.m., but Stewart was hit squarely in the back.

Nancy Jane Montalbano, the mother of two, walked into court as the accused murderer of one. But the weeping Perkiomenville woman, 46, pleaded guilty only to voluntary manslaughter Friday in the death of her 3-year-old adopted daughter in October. A charge of third-degree murder was dropped. Montgomery County Judge S. Gerald Corso is to decide this Friday whether to accept her plea of guilty but mentally ill. "Under the circumstances, voluntary manslaughter seemed most appropriate," said Assistant District Attorney Christopher P. Maloney.

A North Philadelphia man charged with killing a man watching a basketball game last year on Martin Luther King Day - in a recreation center named for the civil-rights leader - was found guilty yesterday of voluntary manslaughter. The jury had reviewed the evidence for a total of nine hours since Thursday before returning a guilty verdict against Bilal N. Gay, 18, in the Jan. 18, 2008, shooting death of Charles "Frog" Trotman, 17, during a time-out at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center at 2101 Cecil B. Moore Ave. In finding Gay guilty of voluntary manslaughter, the jury rejected the prosecutor's request for the more serious first- or third-degree murder.

Four simple words from former University of Pennsylvania economics professor Rafael Robb yesterday in a Montgomery County court described why he blud- geoned his wife to death last year. "I just lost it," Robb said. Ellen Robb, 49, was wrapping Christmas gifts Dec. 22, 2006, when she was beaten to death in her home on Forest Road in Wayne. Before pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter on the day his trial for murder was set to begin, Robb told a packed courtroom and Common Pleas Court Judge Paul W. Tressler that on Dec. 22, he got into an argument with his wife over a trip she planned to take with their preteen daughter, Olivia.

A year ago in Pottstown, moments after the Chicago Bulls won their second NBA championship, John L. Branson turned off his television, went into his bedroom and argued with his wife. The fight, on July 14, 1992, ended with Rosalyn P. Branson dead at the foot of their bed, stabbed 14 times. John Branson, 40, who suffered one stab wound of his own that night, claimed he had acted in self-defense. He said that he was fending off his wife's second personality, Wanda, and fighting against his own flashbacks to the Vietnam War. Yesterday, Montgomery County Court Judge Joseph A. Smyth, who heard Branson's case without a jury, rejected the self-defense argument, convicting him of voluntary manslaughter.

A Philadelphia pastor charged with shooting his son to death on Christmas Day in Delaware County received a light sentence yesterday after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Kirk Caldwell, 44, a plumber and pastor at End Times Harvest Mission, in West Oak Lane, was initially charged with first-degree murder and related offenses for killing his eldest son, Jordan, 21, who had brandished a knife and assaulted other family members at their home in Darby Borough. The District Attorney's Office dropped the most serious murder charge at Caldwell's preliminary hearing.

William Austin was upset. His nephew, Cleveland Walker, 55, had been hacked to death last Oct. 11 and in his mind, the killer got off lightly. "I hope they fry you," Austin railed at Brian Thompson in Common Pleas Judge Lisa A. Richette's courtroom yesterday, knowing that you don't fry with a voluntary manslaughter conviction. "This was a slaughter," Austin cried. He told Richette he couldn't understand how she could have convicted Thompson, 33, of only voluntary manslaughter.

A former University of Pennsylvania economics professor who admitted fatally bludgeoning his wife in December 2006 is scheduled to be sentenced today in Montgomery County Court. Rafael Robb, 58, of Upper Merion, pleaded guilty a year ago to voluntary manslaughter after facing first- and third-degree murder charges. At his plea hearing, Robb told Judge Paul W. Tressler that he "just lost it" on Dec. 22, 2006, during an argument about holiday vacation plans with his wife, Ellen, who had been wrapping Christmas gifts.

District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham has ordered her office to prepare a new warrant for the arrest of former police Sgt. Anthony Brasten on voluntary manslaughter charges, and expects to ask him to surrender next week. On Thursday, a Municipal Court judge said Brasten was doing "what he is under oath to do" when he fired into a dark porch during a confrontation in West Philadelphia that left 54-year-old Charles Matthews dead. Judge William A. King Jr. dismissed voluntary manslaughter charges filed against Brasten by the DA's office on the recommendation of a grand jury.

Tyrirk Harris, the Tacony man who riddled his neighbor with bullets in February after the man complained about Harris' dogs relieving themselves on his lawn, fired out of fear, his attorney told a Judge Tuesday. Franklin Manuel Santana, 47, was legally drunk and leveled threats when he came to Harris' front door on Torresdale Avenue between Magee Avenue and Hellerman Street on Feb. 14, defense lawyer Jack McMahon said during a preliminary hearing. Harris, 27, was minding his own business when Santana "invaded his domain, his castle," said McMahon, who argued that the most serious charge his client should face is voluntary manslaughter.

THE MAN arrested in January for fatally stabbing a man and a woman and killing two small dogs in a South Philadelphia home did so when he snapped after waking up to discover that the woman was sodomizing him with a foreign object, his attorney said Tuesday. "He didn't go to the house with the intent to kill anybody," attorney Earl Kauffman said. "So, if he sees this pole or stick in his rectum and he freaks, you could possibly draw this down to a voluntary manslaughter. " His client, Omar Johnson, 31, of Bancroft Street near Oregon Avenue, in South Philadelphia, was nevertheless ordered to stand trial on two counts of murder and related crimes in the Jan. 10 slayings of Janet Burgess, 50, and Eugene Zappacosta, 78. The slayings took place in the victims' residence, on Dickinson Street near 13th, in South Philadelphia.

THREE MEN who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of a 22-year-old Lansdale man outside Citizens Bank Park in July 2009 were sentenced yesterday to various prison terms. Common Pleas Judge Shelley Robins New gave Francis Kirchner, 30, of Fishtown, 9 to 18 years in prison. He delivered the death kick to victim David Sale, according to court testimony. Charles Bowers, 37, of Northeast Philly, was sentenced to five to 10 years behind bars. And James Groves, 48, of the Fishtown/Kensington area, was sentenced to 2 to 4 years.

VENTURA, Calif. - A Southern California teenager was sentenced Monday to 21 years in state prison for killing a gay junior high school student during a computer-lab class, capping an emotional and tumultuous case that focused attention on how schools deal with sexual-identity issues. Brandon McInerney was sentenced under terms of a plea agreement calling for him to report to prison next month, after he turns 18. McInerney, dressed in a white T-shirt and blue pants, did not speak at the hearing.

After the three men accused of killing Phillies fan David W. Sale Jr. pleaded guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter, one defendant interrupted the judge. He wanted to apologize. Charles Bowers, 37, of Oxford Circle, turned to the friends and family of the man he admitted beating during a beer-fueled brawl in a stadium parking lot July 25, 2009. "I'm very sorry for any actions of mine that caused you to lose a family member," Bowers said from the front row in the Court of Common Pleas courtroom, where he stood with his two codefendants.

Edward Wilson - the West Philadelphia man who killed his younger ex-girlfriend in 2009 and then blew off his face with a shotgun in a failed suicide - was found guilty of third-degree murder Friday by a Philadelphia jury. The Common Pleas Court jury of six men and six women deliberated six hours before announcing guilty verdicts on charges of third-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime. Wilson, 57, did not show any apparent emotion as the jury announced its decision.

A Philadelphia jury resumes deliberations Friday in the murder trial of Edward Wilson, the West Philadelphia man who killed his ex-girlfriend in 2009 and then blew off his face with a shotgun in a failed suicide attempt. The Common Pleas Court jury of six men and six women deliberated 90 minutes Thursday after receiving Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi's instructions. Wilson, 57, is charged with the March 18, 2009, shooting of Antoinette Austin, 26, about six months after he had a stroke and she ended their eight-year relationship.

DWARD WILSON was once madly in love with Antoinette Austin, a woman 28 years his junior who had been living with him for eight years in his West Philadelphia home. But by summer 2008, the romance had soured after he had a stroke and she moved out. Police say that six months later, having failed to win her back, Wilson fired a fatal shotgun blast into Austin's ribs then turned the gun on himself, blowing off half of his face. Wilson, 57, sat in a Philadelphia courtroom yesterday as his trial began.

More than three years ago, a 25-year-old Chester County woman was strangled, her body buried alongside cow carcasses in a remote part of a Cochranville dairy farm. Investigators quickly identified the man who killed Daicy Vasquez-Bedolla as Mauricio Jose Bedolla-Camacho, her ex-boyfriend who admitted taking her life. After about 31/2 hours of deliberations Tuesday, a Chester County Court jury found the 29-year-old Mexican guilty of first-degree murder, rejecting his contention that he was overcome with passion and committed the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter.