KYW Newsradio Team Coverage

by KYW's Mark Abrams, Al Novack, and Paul Kurtz

Philadelphia police say the suspect wanted in connection with Tuesday's shooting at a K-Mart store in the Torresdale neighborhood shoot himself to death on Wednesday morning. 

Authorities say police officers found Daryl Anthony Birch, 30 (below at right), with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head upon entering his Logan home in the 100 block of W. Albanus Street.

He was pronounced dead at 7:45am. Police officers were at Birch's home serving a warrant for his arrest.

Birch was the suspected gunman whom police believe is responsible for shooting
a 35-year-old store manager in the stockroom area of the K-Mart in the 8800 block of Frankford Avenue on Tuesday.

Police issued an all-points bulletin for the alleged gunman on Tuesday.

Police say the shooting of the store manager occurred about 9:45am on Tuesday, near the store's loading dock. The victim was hospitalized with gunshot wounds of the chest and arm, and a graze wound of the head; he was listed in critical condition but expected to recover.

According to investigators, the incident began with the gunman chasing his girlfriend, a K-Mart worker, inside the store. She fled and the manager was hit by gunfire, apparently while trying to intercede on her behalf.

Witnesses say the gunman fled into the neighborhood and a search was under way. Several nearby elementary schools were locked down as a precaution. The store was closed to customers on Tuesday. 
   
Sandra Timson, of Southwest Philadelphia, is Birch’s mother. She came to her son’s neighborhood after hearing the news of his death.

She says he is now at peace and free of the tortured relationships he had with a wife and a girlfriend:
  
“A love triangle with a wife and a baby mother today and the wife tomorrow. It was like a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I didn’t approve of it as a mother. I didn’t like it.” 
  
Timson says her son, who was born in Trinidad, was a good provider who owned three houses and provided for his five young children -- two from his wife, three from his girlfriend.