David Thomas
Police believe that a dispute over an injured pet led four people to treat a Mayfair man worse than an animal inside the basement apartment that he shared with three of his alleged attackers.
Two men and two women imprisoned the 52-year-old victim for 42 hours, held him down, beat him and marked his arms with about a dozen racist and sexually explicit tattoos, according to Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum of Northeast Detectives.
“Supposedly, it’s over an injured cat,” Rosenbaum said. “They thought [the victim] might have broken the cat’s leg. That’s how they started holding him down and beating him.”
The victim’s ordeal began at about 3 p.m. on March 30 on the 3100 block of Brighton St. and continued until about 9 a.m. on April 1, when the alleged captors fell asleep, allowing the man to flee and notify police.
The new tattoos covered both of the man’s arms, from wrist to elbow, and included racially inflammatory words as well as Nazi symbols and depictions of male genitalia.
“It probably took them hours to do that. It wasn’t [done in] an hour,” Rosenbaum said.
The victim also had severely bruised and swollen hands, black eyes and bruising of the legs, ribs and torso when he flagged down patrol cops in the street. The officers went to the house, found the alleged attackers sleeping and arrested them. The victim was taken to Aria Health’s Torresdale Campus for treatment.
During a subsequent search of the house, police allegedly found a tattoo station with a tattoo gun, needles, ink vials and related paraphernalia. Searchers also found 155 grams of marijuana, several bottles of prescription drugs and the victim’s debit card, which he claims had been stolen from him, police said.
Corry Campbell, 20; Sandra Ng, 19; Jennifer Pratt, 29; and David Thomas, 27; were all charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, kidnapping, robbery, conspiracy and related crimes. Campbell (who is also known by the name “Corey”), Ng and Pratt all list the same rowhouse as their home address, while Thomas is a resident of the 9300 block of Jamison Ave. in Bustleton. According to Rosenbaum, Campbell’s mother lives on the first and second floors of the house, while four people including the victim lived in the cramped basement, which had one bed, a sofa, a refrigerator and a microwave oven.
The property is very familiar to police, who have visited it about 20 times following complaints by neighbors of disorderly conduct, screaming and fights there, Rosenbaum said. Although the basement has an exterior door, neighbors reported that the occupants used to enter and exit by climbing through a window. Police aren’t sure how the victim ended up with his much younger attackers, but he is a longtime area resident.
Property records show that the house last sold for $140,000 in 2009. Investigators believe that Campbell’s mother was at home during the period when the victim remained captive, but she has not been charged criminally.
Three of the alleged attackers have prior arrests. Campbell has multiple retail theft cases on his rap sheet, while Ng has one retail theft case and Thomas three assault cases.
Animal control authorities removed the injured cat from the home and took it to a shelter. ••
Jennifer Pratt
Sandra Ng
Corry Campbell
