Daughter of 75-Year-Old Woman Shot, Robbed on NYE Calls Robber “Cowardly”

The Philadelphia Police Department reissued its call for information regarding the man who shot a 75-year-old Mayfair woman in the face during a daylight robbery on New Year’s Eve at a news conference featuring the victim’s daughter this morning.

During that conference, the daughter, Edie Ritchie, fielded questions about her mother’s mental state and the brazen robbery.

Her mother, she said, is “still pretty feisty” but doesn’t really want to talk about the incident right now.

Ritchie said that the woman had just cashed her paycheck and bought groceries at the ShopRite on Frankford Avenue at Knorr Street, and that the robbery occurred while she was returning home. The robbery and shooting occurred in an alley between the 7100 blocks of Erdrick and Montague streets. After getting shot, the woman continued walking to her home three blocks away, put away her groceries and called for help.

Ritchie said that her sister had offered to take their mother grocery shopping but that she declined and went out on her own. She described her mother as “a tough woman. Old-school, I’d say” and the man who robbed her as “cowardly” for doing a drive-by robbery in broad daylight.

Police had previously released a video put together from surveillance camera footage showing a silver (or white) 2004-2008 Nissan Altima with a sky or moon roof and damage to the passenger side driving down the alley after the robbery, turning onto Princeton Avenue, then turning north on Torresdale Avenue.

“I hope this guy is off the streets,” Ritchie said. “You think nothing like this is going to happen to you, but it happened.” She added that her father “is pretty upset” as well.

Her mother, a Philadelphia native, has lived in Mayfair for more than 40 years. She works as a non-teaching assistant at the nearby Edwin Forrest School on the 7300 block of Cottage Street. “She’s worried about getting to work on Monday and not ruining her perfect attendance,” Ritchie said.

Students at the school, she said, are staging a “dress down day” fundraiser for her mother tomorrow.

Anyone with any information that might lead to the robber’s capture should call the Philadelphia Police at 215-686-3153 or -3154. Some neighbors called in a description of the robbery and the suspect after the incident; the suspect was described as a Hispanic man in his late 20s, wearing a red knit cap and trimmed beard. Anyone who spots a man matching the description should consider him dangerous and call 911.

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