. . . And maybe uncovering
some new leads

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

It’s no wonder that Holmes is his last name. While Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, Northeast Philly resident George Holmes is just as fascinated with crime. He’s even walked the streets of Whitechapel in London, where in 1888 Jack the Ripper left horror in his wake.
Holmes, 55, has been intrigued with crime for decades, since his boyhood days visiting the Horn & Hardart restaurant with his grandfather, where he’d see the infamous members of the K&A gang at nearby tables.
"As a kid growing up in Kensington, it was normal to rob trains and factories," Holmes said, stressing that he never did residential burglaries.
Today Holmes is an upstanding citizen, still interested in crime but from more of a historical perspective. A former reporter for the Public Record, he’s published two books, The Philadelphia’s River Wards and co-authored with Allen Hornblum Philadelphia’s City Hall.
Both books are part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. His next book is Tun Tavern, considered the birthplace of the Marine Corps.
Holmes, a former Civil War re-enactor, combined his love of history with his love of technology to produce documentary films on the 1959 Pottsville Heist, a half-million dollar score that cost two people their lives, and Street Games — those things city kids played from morning ’til night, before there was cable, DVDs and iPods.
Both documentaries have been televised and are available online at his Web site www.phillyneighbors.com
A new addition to the site is a page devoted to the history of Philly gangsters. The work in progress covers the history of crime in Philadelphia from the Doan brothers to today’s most wanted criminals.
Holmes also assisted Hornblum with some of the K&A interviews for his Confessions of a Second Story Man: Junior Kripplebauer and the K&A Gang. He also filmed Hornblum’s recent book event at Holy Family University.
During a question-and-answer session at the event, retired Philadelphia Police Capt. Frank Friel, who helped take down La Cosa Nostra and co-wrote Breaking the Mob, asked about the K&A connection to Dolores Della Penna’s murder and why it has not been prosecuted.
Della Penna, a 17-year-old from Tacony who had just graduated from St. Hubert High School with honors, disappeared on July 11, 1972. Her dismembered torso was found in Jackson Township, N.J., now home to Six Flags Great Adventure.
Retired detective John Del Carlino, who had tracked the K&A gang for years, rattled off the names of a few people involved with the horrific crime, and he told Friel that he had personally asked District Attorney Lynne Abraham about the case after evidence had come to light in the mid-1990s.
"I knew her all of my career when she was an assistant (district attorney). I ran into her at City Hall and she invited me into her office. There were five warrants that were going to be issued. I asked her why no arrest," Del Carlino said in a follow-up phone interview.
Abraham’s answer, he said, was that the case at the time was unwinnable. They’d rather not arrest with the evidence that they had, according to Del Carlino, who retired in 1980.
However, when Friel brought it up at the Holy Family event, a loud, clanging bell rang in Holmes’ head. While conducting interviews for the K&A book, Della Penna’s name kept coming up, so much so that Holmes started keeping a file.
Then a few years back he said he received a phone call from an anonymous person telling him that he’d find a brown envelope behind a trash can outside of a Wawa store. In the envelope, Holmes found official Philadelphia Police Department homicide documents about the murder investigation. Since then, he’s received other surreptitious information drops, and he’s had documents handed to him from Philadelphia police. The file now is 6 inches thick and is stored in three separate locations.
One of the items in the file was a copy of a page from Della Penna’s address book. Holmes began calling the phone numbers, many of which once belonged to the teenager’s classmates from Our Lady of Consolation.
One man answered the phone number Holmes dialed and gave him the current phone number of his daughter Nancy. The girlhood friend of Della Penna’s told Holmes that Dolores used to go to dances down in Kensington and that Old Man something used to chase her around the table. According to the friend, Della Penna stopped going because of him.
Holmes knew the man she had been referring to was Old Man Sam.
In 1996, the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted police as saying that investigators had finally put together what happened to the teenager, and knew who was involved in her death.
"I know the whole story, the names, exactly what was done. I met with John Del Carlino and Larry Michalski (a retired prison guard who had testified along with Del Carlino before the grand jury in the case) and their jaws dropped," Holmes said.
However, Abraham still believes she didn’t have enough to move forward with the case.
"Nothing would be more satisfying than putting the heart and mind of the Della Penna family at ease by making an arrest in this terrible case. Every time I see Mrs. Della Penna, my heart goes out to her. All of the prosecutors who reviewed the case agreed that there was not even close to enough evidence to arrest anybody," Abraham said in a written statement.
Holmes, too, is respectful of the Della Penna family. He believes the whole story will come out but said he has to respect the family’s privacy.
For the crime historian, however, the unsolved murder of the Tacony teenager is just the beginning.
"There are eight dead girls with the same common denominator. There was methamphetamine involved and the K&A gang," Holmes said.
The seven other girls are Candace Clothier; Carol Lee David; Bonny Lee David; Denise Marie Seaman; Debra Jean Delozier; Layne Dorothy Spicer; and Mary Ann Lees.
Since Friel brought up Dolores Della Penna’s name, Holmes decided to add an Unsolved Murders page to his Philly Neighbors Web site. If you have information that you’d like to share, e-mail phillyneighbors@comcast.net ••
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com