Members of the 15th Police District Advisory Council have honored the officer credited with arresting a Frankford woman suspected of starting several neighborhood fires.
During the PDAC’s June 25 meeting at the Mayfair Community Center, Sgt. Marc Metellus was tapped as the district’s May Officer of the Month.
Sharon Krause, the district’s community relations officer, said Metellus got a radio call about a woman attempting to set a fire on May 22 and stopped Noelle Bilbrough, 35, of the 1600 block of Pratt St., on Orthodox Street. Metellus found she was wanted for a number of arsons that had been committed in Frankford since mid-April.
Bilbrough was taken to Northeast Detectives, where, after giving a statement, she was arrested. She was charged with setting 10 fires in her neighborhood, two of which displaced several families. No one was injured in those fires. She was charged with arson, causing a catastrophe, reckless endangerment and related offenses.
Bilbrough has a criminal record in Philadelphia that goes back to 2006. She had been found guilty of promoting prostitution in 2006, ’07 and ’08. She also allegedly violated her probation. A July 19 preliminary hearing is scheduled for Bilbrough, who remains in custody in the Riverside Correctional Facility on State Road.
During their May session at St. Joachim’s R.C. Church in Frankford, PDAC members honored Steven Hancock and Brendan Doris as April’s Officers of the Month for apprehending a suspect who pulled a knife on a city worker.
The officers had answered a radio call about a person with a weapon at 6:45 p.m. on April 26. The city worker had complained that a woman had lunged at her with a knife.
The officers followed their suspect, Sandra Yorgey, into a store on the 6200 block of Bustleton Ave., where the woman allegedly punched Hancock in the face. The officers wrestled the woman to the ground and took a knife from her, police said.
Yorgey’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 27. She faces aggravated assault, resisting arrest and related charges.••
