Neighbors who knew Billy Schmidt helped investigators reconstruct his death and built a memorial within sight of his family’s home.
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The distance between William “Billy” Schmidt and his front door was only a few yards when a gunshot broke the early-morning quiet on Durfor Street, turning a close South Philadelphia neighborhood into the center of a homicide investigation.
Schmidt, a 22-year-old Penn State student, was shot across the street from the home he shared with his father on June 6. Neighbors soon filled the space with flowers and candles while opening their security-camera systems to detectives. Their recordings helped police track two people before and after the shooting and supported a search that ended with the arrests of two 16-year-old suspects. The block’s role shifted from scene of the killing to source of evidence, gathering place for mourners and daily reminder of the family’s loss.
Durfor Street is lined with rowhomes set close to the sidewalk, leaving little distance between front steps, parked cars and the roadway. Residents often know who belongs on the block and which children grew up in nearby houses. Several neighbors remembered Schmidt from years before he became a Penn State student. One said their children had played together when they were young. That familiarity made the killing feel less like a distant report and more like an attack on someone woven into the block’s history. Michael Smith, a nearby resident, said neighbors came together after the death even though the reason for gathering was painful. The memorial formed within view of the Schmidt home.
The night had begun elsewhere, with Schmidt watching an NBA Finals game at a local bar with friends. He left after midnight and walked back toward the 1900 block of Durfor Street. At about 1:30 a.m., two people approached him near South 20th Street, according to police. Investigators believe someone took his cellphone. Audio from a porch camera captured Schmidt asking for the device. Video from another angle showed a cellphone being thrown and a person running around a corner. Schmidt followed. A second person then appeared and fired a shot into his chest. Police arrived to find him in the road only steps from home.
Emergency workers took Schmidt to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, but he was pronounced dead at 1:47 a.m. The official timeline lasted only minutes. For residents, the aftermath stretched through the day as police tape, investigators and news crews occupied the block. Detectives moved between homes asking about cameras and possible witnesses. Residents searched stored recordings from doorbells, porches and exterior systems. The resulting clips gave police different views of the same brief event. Some captured speech, others movement. Several showed what appeared to be efforts by the two people to hide, flee or change their appearance after the shot.
Bill Schmidt, the victim’s father, confronted the loss from directly across the street. He said his son had never caused trouble and was known as a good person. “It’s been brutal,” he said. The father later found Billy’s phone under a parked car and handed it to police. Based on the footage and information provided to the family, he believed one person took the phone while the other waited out of sight. His son chased after the person with the device, he said, and the second person fired. He expressed shock that Billy followed them and anger that a life had been taken over property that was recovered nearby.
The closeness of the shooting complicated ordinary life for the family. The front door opened toward the memorial. The route to and from the house passed the place where Schmidt fell. Visitors arrived with condolences, and officers from Philadelphia’s 1st Police District came to speak with the family. The neighborhood’s physical layout meant there was no separation between private mourning and the public scene. Cameras pointed toward the curb. Reporters stood near the rowhomes. Flowers marked the roadway. The block continued to function as a place where people lived, parked and returned from work, even as the homicide investigation remained visible outside.
Police released images drawn from the neighborhood footage as they searched for two suspects. Investigators described both as young Black males, one about 5 feet 8 inches tall and the other several inches shorter. They highlighted a gray hooded sweatshirt with skull-and-crossbones artwork that one person wore before clothing was discarded. Later recordings showed white T-shirts. Police said the shorter person appeared to fire with his left hand. The detailed descriptions reflected what the cameras could establish even when facial images were unclear. A $20,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
The public search continued for more than three weeks. Police obtained warrants charging Kaiseem Smith and Azzubair Outen-Fleming, both 16, with murder and other offenses. Outen-Fleming was arrested July 1 at a distant relative’s residence in Colorado Springs by a U.S. Marshals Service task force. Federal authorities said he attempted to deny his identity. Smith surrendered to Philadelphia police July 2. The arrests ended the manhunt, but they also raised questions that investigators have not fully answered, including how one suspect traveled to Colorado and whether anyone helped either teenager after the killing.
The case now moves into a court system far removed from the informal cooperation that began on Durfor Street. Prosecutors will have to convert neighborhood observations and camera clips into evidence that meets legal standards. They must establish the identity of each person shown, the role each allegedly played and the connection between the phone theft and the fatal shot. Defense attorneys may challenge the recordings, eyewitness accounts or handling of physical items. The defendants’ ages could lead to requests for juvenile-court treatment, although Pennsylvania law allows some teenage homicide cases to begin in adult criminal court.
Police have not publicly said whether they recovered the gun. They also have not released a complete list of evidence taken during searches or following the arrests. Questions remain about whether the defendants knew Schmidt, whether he had been observed before entering Durfor Street and what the two people said to him during the initial contact. The cameras captured only portions of the exchange. Parked cars, corners and the limits of each lens left gaps. Investigators may have filled some of those gaps with interviews, electronic data or forensic testing, but those materials had not been fully described in public reports.
Schmidt’s death connected several communities beyond the block. He graduated from Roman Catholic High School in 2021, and the school remembered him as a person whose kindness and character remained part of its community. At Penn State World Campus, he studied digital journalism and media and planned to graduate in December. His sister said he hoped to enter sports broadcasting. His father said Billy had discussed working for the Philadelphia Eagles. Penn State offered condolences and said student-affairs staff had contacted the family. Those statements widened the circle of mourning from a few South Philadelphia streets to former classmates, university peers and people who shared his interest in sports.
Still, the neighborhood remained the physical center of the story. It was where Schmidt grew up, where he lived and where he died. It was also where residents preserved evidence before digital systems erased or recorded over it. Their cameras helped police follow the suspects’ path, examine clothing and hear Schmidt’s words. Their statements gave detectives local knowledge about what was normal on the block and what was not. Their memorial showed the family that the loss was shared. One resident called the killing over a phone unbelievable. Others publicly asked for anyone who recognized the people in the images to speak with police.
The cooperation did not remove the fear created by the shooting. A person had been killed near occupied homes while most residents slept. The alleged attackers moved among cars and corners familiar to families on the block. Residents who had viewed their footage knew that ordinary security equipment had captured a neighbor’s death. The recordings were useful, but their value came with the burden of replaying the sequence. Some broadcasts muted the gunshot out of respect for Schmidt’s relatives. The block’s cameras, installed to watch property and doorways, became witnesses to an event no resident expected them to record.
For Bill Schmidt, the arrests delivered the accountability he had demanded only in its earliest form. He had said he wanted both people found and made to answer for his son’s death. Smith’s surrender and Outen-Fleming’s capture ensured that courts could begin that process. They did not answer every question or lessen the daily presence of the crime scene outside the family home. The memorial could eventually be removed, but the view from the rowhouse and the recordings stored by neighbors had already fixed the event in the history of Durfor Street.
Outen-Fleming awaited return from Colorado, while Smith remained in Philadelphia custody. Future hearings are expected to address the charges, the defendants’ court status and the evidence gathered from the neighborhood. Until those proceedings begin, the block remains where the public account is clearest: a phone beneath a car, several cameras pointed toward the street and a family’s home only yards away.
Author note: Last updated July 12, 2026.