Another Truck Driver Fatally Shot, Hunt is on for Gunman

by Jana Ritter - Published: 6/10/2015

It's been just over a month since a  fuel truck driver was fatally shot during a late night delivery in Fort Worth, Texas and already another truck driver has been gunned down under similar circumstances, this time in Yeadon, Delaware County PA.

                                                         

At around 3:44 a.m. on Tuesday morning, 63 year-old Thomas Childs was about leave for his regular route to New York when police say that he was gunned down just as he getting into the cab of his delivery truck. Yeadon Police Chief, Donald Molineux, said that Childs suffered at least two gunshot wounds and that they weren’t yet sure if it was a senseless killing or an attempted robbery that led to the shooting. Molineux says that also at around 3:44 a.m., the police had received a 911 call about “a suspicious person” at 6250 Baltimore Ave, which is the site of the former A&P warehouse that now houses a dozen or more businesses including Ridgway Industries, where Childs had been employed for 15 years.

                                                                                        

When police arrived on the scene, they found a box-truck backed into a loading platform and Childs lying outside the truck on his back. They immediately saw the gunshot wounds on this upper body and unfortunately, he had already died from his injuries. Molineux also reports that the driver’s side door to the truck was open and the interior light of the cab was on, which is what initially caught the attention of the responding officers. The box-truck was one of two parked behind a large trash dumpster, which easily hid it from view of anyone passing by the area. Molineux says that Childs had driven his own car to the loading dock that morning and that his water bottle and lunch box were in the truck, and he had already completed the necessary data entry into the computer on-board. “His truck was ready to go,” Molineux confirms.

Thankfully, the 911 caller was another truck driver employed by a different company in the same complex. He had been returning from a delivery when he heard a noise he thought could have been gunshots and then noticed a suspicious individual walking away from the area of Ridgway Industries and at one point the witness said he observed the man reaching into his waistband. He then stopped to notify authorities and have since given police a composite sketch, which was released by the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday afternoon.

The suspect is described as a black male in his 20s, about 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 6 inches tall, with a mustache and wearing a gray hoodie. Anyone with information is asked to contact Yeadon police at 610-623-1500, county detectives at 610-891-4700 or 911.

“No one ever deserves this, but especially not him,” said Frank Ball, office manager for Ridgway Industries. “He was a great guy, a hard worker. He didn’t deserve what happened.”

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