PHILADELPHIA — A promising 22-year-old Penn State senior with his whole life ahead of him was brutally executed in the street, just yards from his family’s South Philadelphia home, after two thugs robbed him of his cellphone early Saturday morning.
Billy Schmidt was walking home around 1:30 a.m. from a local bar where he’d been watching the NBA Finals with friends when the nightmare unfolded on the 1900 block of Durfor Street, police and family said.
Surveillance video captured the horrifying moments: Two young men confronted Schmidt. One snatched his phone. Schmidt — described by loved ones as a “really good kid” who “never hurt or bothered a soul”- gave chase.
As he closed in, one of the suspects spun around and fired a single shot into his chest. Schmidt collapsed. He was rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center but didn’t survive.
His devastated father, Bill Schmidt, found the discarded phone under a car and handed it over to cops. “I’m shocked that he chased them,” the elder Schmidt told reporters. “He was very lowkey... I want to find the two people and make them pay.”
Neighbors in the tight-knit South Philly block were stunned and heartbroken, quickly setting up a memorial across the street from the family home. “Over a phone. It’s abhorrent,” one resident said. “It’s just unbelievable that someone would kill someone over a phone.”
Schmidt was preparing to enter his senior year at Penn State, studying communications. Family and friends remembered him as a caring, fun-loving young man who played with neighborhood kids growing up.
No arrests have been made. Philadelphia police are reviewing multiple surveillance videos and urging anyone with information to come forward. The incident appears to be a straight-up robbery gone lethal.
The killing has rocked the community, coming in a city long plagued by violent street crime. Neighbors described the suspects as young males and are pleading for tips to bring justice to Billy’s grieving family.
