One day after rejecting a plea deal, the man charged in last year’s killing of transgender woman London Kiki Chanel changed his mind.
Raheam Felton, 32, pleaded guilty June 14 to third-degree murder and a weapons charge. He received 22-44 years behind bars. Felton remains in custody at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and will likely be transferred to the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, said Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Guy D’Andrea.
D’Andrea said Chanel’s family was startled at first by Felton’s reversal.
“At the end of the day, they were happy to hear him take responsibility for what he’d done,” D’Andrea told PGN the day after the hearing.
He added Chanel’s mother, Veronica Allen, who had wanted to be in the court for all proceedings, was relieved not to have to go through a trial.
“She was relieved that she didn’t have to hear from the medical examiner about the graphic way in which London died and not have to see the crime-scene photos,” D’Andrea said.
The commonwealth also found the plea deal satisfactory. D’Andrea said he was prepared to make a strong case against Felton. But he and other authorities could not track down two key witnesses, one of whom was Felton’s then-girlfriend Mayai Bankz, a transgender woman who testified against Felton at his preliminary hearing last year.
“We canvassed the entire area of Philadelphia,” D’Andrea said, noting 25 addresses were checked with help from police, LGBT groups and Nellie Fitzpatrick, director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs.
“This probably was the largest full-court press in terms of finding a witness.”
Without those witnesses, D’Andrea said, it would’ve been easier for the defense to argue that Felton acted in self-defense in Chanel’s killing.
Prosecutors said Felton stabbed Chanel, 21, repeatedly in the back and neck after she told Bankz that Felton had made sexual advances toward her. The three lived together in an abandoned home in the 2200 block of Ingersoll Street in North Philadelphia. Chanel was originally from Texas.
D’Andrea noted one other benefit to Felton taking the plea deal versus going to trial: He now has much stricter appeals rights that essentially guarantee he will serve 22 years before meeting with a parole board.
“This was a horrific and tragic death,” D’Andrea said. “It’s never closure, but the family hopefully now can start healing.”