One man was murdered and another critically wounded in an abduction-related shooting along a wooded Crescentville street on Thursday afternoon.
Police went to the 5600 block of Newtown Ave. at about 5:45 in response to a police radio report of a shooting and found the victims, ages 29 and 26, lying on the remote street near railroad tracks and Tacony Creek Park. They had been bound with duct tape and shot multiple times each. Police also found about a half-dozen empty shell casings there.
The older man, identified by police as Carl Johnson, was wounded in the head, chest and leg. He died at the scene. Paramedics took the 26-year-old to Albert Einstein Medical Center in critical but stable condition with wounds of the back, arm and leg. Authorities have not released his name.
A police source said that the surviving victim claimed that gunmen abducted the victims in the Germantown area and drove them to Newtown Avenue in a van. A motive is not known. Police have not released descriptions of the culprits.
Contrary to one published news report, authorities now believe that the shootings were not connected to the robbery of an armored truck outside a Mayfair bank that morning, according to a police source. ••
