Wynnefield

Every time Jesse Wenk looks at the quarter-inch-wide cracks in his walls, he's reminded of it. Every time he sees that his front steps have pulled farther away from his Roxborough home, he can't escape it. Wenk's house on Pensdale Street near Freeland Avenue is sinking. Unbeknown to Wenk, his house, which dates from the 1920s, was built on a former pharmaceutical company dump that was covered over with ash. The ash is now shifting, causing his house to sink. Before long he will have to move.

A 21-year-old Temple University student, working as a pizza delivery woman, testified yesterday that she was abducted from the parking lot of a Wynnefield apartment building after making a delivery and was driven to the parking lot of the Overbrook train station, where she was raped Feb. 28. During a preliminary hearing, the woman identified Craig Poles, 30, of Montgomery Avenue near 54th Street, as her attacker. Common Pleas Judge Norman A. Jenkins held Poles for trial on a series of charges, including rape, robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault and terroristic threats.

Algie Dennis was awakened by a late-night phone call from his brother Anthony. "Al, I think something happened to A.J.," his brother said, referring to Dennis' son. "You better get up here. " Lying on the blacktop playground of William B. Mann Elementary School in Wynnefield was a young man with a bullet wound to his head. Police let Algie Dennis into the taped-off crime scene - and he knew. "That's my son," Dennis said. Algie Jeremy Dennis, 19, a student at Millersville University in Lancaster County, was killed May 26 while playing dice with friends against the wall of the school at 54th and Berks Streets.

Five men were injured last night when gunfire erupted in the city's Wynnefield section, police said. The incident was reported about 10:15 p.m. near the intersection of 54th and Arlington Streets. According to police, a large group of people were on the street, some of them shooting dice. Without warning, a man opened fire on the group, victims told investigators early today. There was no apparent motive for the shooting, police said. Two victims were taken to the Medical College Hospitals' Main Clinical Campus.

A Wynnefield man was arrested last night and charged with participating in a crime spree earlier this week in which two men stole a car and robbed five people within about two hours along and near City Avenue, police said. Among the victims were two men whose cars were forced off the road, police said. Dexter Ayres, 27, of the 5200 block of Lebanon Avenue, was arrested at 6:15 p.m. at his home and charged with auto theft and multiple counts of robbery, police said. A second man was being sought.

When telephone company executive Robert A. Roach and his wife, Geraldine, decided to move to Philadelphia from rural New Jersey last year, they knew what they wanted: a big, old house suitable for corporate and personal entertaining but convenient to the cultural attractions of Center City. They started looking in Center City, but even the big houses weren't big enough. They expanded the search to Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill and the Main Line, but nothing there was quite right.

Agee Stanton was quietly munching on some cookies when the police marched into his mother's Wynnefield home on Sunday. His appetite hadn't been affected by the severe beating he had just inflicted on his 87-year-old mother, cops said. Stanton's mother, Susan, wasn't eating any cookies. She was suffering from a broken nose, and an awful gash on the side of her face that required 100 stitches to close - the price she paid for telling her son to stop smoking marijuana, said Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives.

Marshall Murray, 36 and blind, moved in January from Pottstown to the Park Tower Apartments in Wynnefield. The Conshohocken Avenue complex has 157 apartments specially designed to accommodate those who are blind or handicapped. One-third of the residents are blind, such a large percentage that a nearby traffic light was adapted to chime when it changes. Murray said the neighborhood was nice but said he feared that might soon change. A developer has proposed building a shopping center with 627 parking spaces across the street from Park Towers, which residents say will lead to increased traffic, crime and noise, and may hurt property values.

A Philadelphia man suspected in the theft of mail containing U.S Treasury and Social Security checks was arrested yesterday in his Wynnefield home. A second thief is being sought. Police and postal inspectors descended on a house on Kershaw Street near 49th and found more than 5,000 pieces of mail they suspect had been stolen from a postal truck on Monday. The man's name will not be released until he is charged, which could be today, authorities said. A second arrest is imminent, authorities said.

Kim Carter brushed the soil off her gardening gloves and smiled when she heard that her property taxes would decrease by $203 in 2014. "I really did think it was going to go up," she said. Carter has lived on the 3700 block of Country Club Road in Wynnefield for 16 years, and hers is one of the Philadelphia neighborhoods that got lucky under the city's new property tax system. Carter says her block has changed over the years, becoming more diverse. Eight of 10 residents are minority, according to the 2010 Census.

A car chase after an accident Tuesday afternoon in Wynnefield ended with a crash that left an 90-year-old man in a third vehicle in critical condition, police said. A 25-year-old man driving a blue Buick Park Avenue got into an accident with a 29-year-old man in a white Nissan Maxima at 54th Street and City Avenue, police said. The younger driver fled and was pursued by the man in the Nissan. At 3:47, the Buick crashed into a gold Honda Accord occupied by the man and an 82-year-old woman in the 2200 block of Bryn Mawr Avenue, police said.

Derrick Robinson was playing Call of Duty about 2 a.m. Friday when, suddenly, the sound of gunfire became all too real. A gunman, carrying what police believe was an AR-15 rifle, began ripping shots into the front of the house where Robinson, 18, and his brother Oliver, 22, live. The shots were fired from a basketball court at 53d and Euclid Streets in the Wynnefield section, across from the Robinsons' house. Police said they recovered 17 casings. Bullets sprayed through windows, above the front door, and, eventually, into the Robinson brothers' second-floor bedroom.

Derrick Robinson was playing Call of Duty about 2 a.m. Friday when, suddenly, the sound of gunfire became all too real. A gunman, carrying what police believe was an AR-15 rifle, began ripping shots into the front of the house where Robinson, 18, and his brother Oliver, 22, live. The shots were fired from a basketball court at 53d and Euclid Streets in the Wynnefield section, across from the Robinsons' house. Police said they recovered 17 casings. Bullets sprayed through windows, above the front door, and, eventually, into the Robinson brothers' second-floor bedroom.

A 19-year-old woman was shot once in the head on Aberdeen Street in Wynnefield Heights about 9 p.m. Tuesday, police said. Police said she was not the intended victim. She was pronounced dead at the scene. No further details were available Tuesday night. - Melissa Dribben

Residents of a Wynnefield neighborhood awoke Wednesday to find seven parked vehicles ablaze. Fire marshals ruled the outbreak arson. Burned were a string of cars on Georges Lane at Arlington Street and a cluster of others a block away at West Berks Street. Firefighters got the call at 4:34 a.m. and quickly put out the flames. Four of the cars burst into flame outside the home of Cameal Murray, 26, an EKG technician who said she was startled awake by an explosion about 4:30 a.m. and feared more blasts would follow.

Robert Lancaster, 76, who lives on the same Wynnefield block as Mayor Nutter, was beaten to death in his house last week, authorities said yesterday. A relative found Lancaster dead in his second-floor bedroom with a pillow over his face Thursday morning. Police initially said that Lancaster, who lived alone on 50th Street near Woodbine Avenue, had suffered trauma to the left side of his face. A medical examiner determined Saturday that he had died of blunt-force trauma to the head.

A 76-year-old man who lived on Mayor Nutter's block was bludgeoned to death in his Wynnefield home sometime late last week, authorities said Monday. Robert Lancaster was found dead Friday morning, lying in his bed on the second floor of his home on the 2300 block of North 50th Street, near St. Joseph's University. Mayor Nutter has lived on that block since the fall of 1994. Lancaster was found by his nephew, who called police. Despite trauma to Lancaster's head, his death was termed suspicious until an autopsy could be conducted.

Homicide detectives are investigating the death of an elderly man who lived on the same Wynnefield block as Mayor Nutter. A relative found Robert Lancaster, 76, dead inside his home on 50th Street near Woodbine Avenue about 9 a.m. yesterday. Police said Lancaster had suffered some trauma to the left side of his face, but the cause of his death was unclear. An autopsy was expected to be performed today. There were no apparent signs of a break-in or a struggle, police said. Nutter, who lives down the street from Lancaster, was "saddened by his neighbor's death," said mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald.

From any angle, Mahari Bailey is a success. He has worked long hours as a lawyer specializing in commercial real estate since 2007, the year he graduated from Georgetown Law School. He grew up in Wynnefield, is married and has a 14-month-old daughter. His cell phone is never out of reach in case his wife calls. Their second baby is due in two weeks. Bailey, 27, used to drive a white Infiniti M45, but now slips behind the wheel of his white Range Rover. And he's always impeccably groomed, whether he sports a gray suit and starched, white shirt or a T-shirt and jeans.