By Dan Robrish, The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A man accused of killing two people, including the mother of his four children, was apprehended after he was spotted in church during a Sunday service, police said.
Lyndell Swinson, 28, was attending services at the Mount Airy Church of God in Christ, where the minister is also a police lieutenant. When a member of the congregation alerted the Rev. Norman Davenport, the clergyman “switched roles back to the lieutenant role” and notified other officers, police Capt. Richard Ross of the homicide unit said.
A SWAT team was called in, and several plainclothes members of the team went into the church along with detectives, at least one of whom wore a minister’s robe, Ross said. After the three-hour service, Swinson tried to flee on foot but was caught quickly, authorities said. He was unarmed.
It was not immediately clear why Swinson went to the church.
“We speculate that he was there to get some money, but I mean, we haven’t confirmed that yet. I don’t think he found God all of the sudden, but that’s not for me to say,” Ross said.
Swinson had been the subject of an intense manhunt since Aug. 13, when Laquickta Robinson, 26, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his four children, was found dead in her home. He is accused of having shot her in the head.
At the time of that murder, Swinson was already a fugitive, wanted in the May killing of cabdriver Maninovsky Lubin, a native of Haiti, who was shot to death during an apparent robbery May 10 in West Philadelphia.
“He had a million and one other places to be,” Davenport said. “I just believe it was divine intervention that caused him to be in our church, and to send the officers that responded to the church, and the situation worked out perfectly. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”