Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and Cheltenham Township Police Chief John Slavin announced an investigation into a shooting homicide at the Melrose Shopping Center on Cheltenham Avenue.
The victim was identified as Rachel King, 35, of Elkins Park. She was a teacher at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in the Mastery charter school system.
“We are devasted by the loss of an extraordinary teacher, who spent the last 10 years working with our students and their families,” the school system said in a statement.
At 7:39am today, Cheltenham Township Police were dispatched to the Melrose Shopping Center for the report of a shooting. On arrival, police found a female victim in the driver’s seat of a black Ford Edge, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. The vehicle had come to a rest on a parking island near the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru lane. King’s 11-year-old son was seated in the rear of the vehicle and was not injured.
An autopsy on King’s body was performed by Dr. Ian Hood, a forensic pathologist with the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office. Dr. Hood opined the cause of death was multiple gunshots and the manner of death was homicide.
Cheltenham Township Police and Montgomery County Detectives launched a joint homicide investigation. Through multiple interviews and surveillance videos from nearby businesses, detectives determined that the victim was driving her Ford Edge, traveling westbound on Cheltenham Avenue, when she turned into the shopping center and pulled into a line of traffic in the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru lane. A light-colored sedan, possibly a Ford or Mercury, was seen driving directly behind King’s vehicle and then parking a short distance away from the drive-thru lane. A Black male exited the sedan and walked up to the driver’s side of King’s vehicle, where he fired numerous shots through the driver’s side window, before fleeing back to his vehicle and leaving the scene, driving eastbound on Cheltenham Avenue.
The Black male is described as having a thin build and was wearing light-colored pants and a dark-colored, hooded sweatshirt with the hood up covering his head.
“This appears to be a targeted murder of a mother. The Black male did not attempt to open the victim’s vehicle door, nor did he appear to communicate with her prior to shooting her numerous times through her driver’s side window,” said Steele. “Anyone with information about this vehicle or the driver is asked to call police and help us find whoever committed this heinous murder.”
Anyone with information regarding the vehicle involved in this murder or the shooter is asked to contact the Cheltenham Township Police Department at 215-885-1600 (extension 400) or Montgomery County Detectives at 610-226-5553. Tips can also be called into the Montco Detective Tip Line at 610-278-DOIT (3648). Anonymous text tips can be submitted using MontcoCrimeTips on the STOPit! app. The STOPit! app can be downloaded for free from the App Store for iPhones or Google Play for Androids, then use code MONTCOPA to get the Montgomery County version of the app.
Feature photo courtesy of NBC10. Vehicle photos courtesy of MontCo DA
Note: A previous version of this article stated that the shooter was possibly the father. Glenside Local has corrected the error.