NEast Links: Clean-up, cancer scam, witness intimidation, murder-suicide

NEast Links: bringing you additional Northeast news

The Tacony CDC and Tacony Civic Association are inviting volunteers to participate in their Philly Spring Cleanup event April 14. Participants will meet at the Tacony Library to clean up Torresdale Avenue from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Volunteers should call (215)501-7799 or e-mail at alex AT taconycdc.org [Tacony CDC].

A Parkwood woman who faked cancer to avoid going to prison has been found out, and will go to jail. Leah Moock will spend five years in federal prison for the scam, during which time she started a relationship, had a child and got cosmetic surgery [Daily News].

A judge has sentenced two Tacony women accused of antagonizing a woman who testified in a murder trial.  Theresa Merlo and Tara McDowell were each given probation – in addition to up to 23 months in jail for Merlo – for threatening Susan Coulter. Coulter testified in the double-murder trial of Gerald Drummond and Robert McDowell. The two men were found guilty of first-degree murder in 2010 for the racially charged killings of Damien Holloway and Timothy Clark [Inquirer].

Police are investigating an apparent murder-suicide in Lawncrest. Police arrived on the 5900-block of Rising Sun Avenue around 7 p.m. Saturday to find a male and female each with one fatal gunshot wound [CBS3].

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