Robert Davis, accused killer of Josh Kruger, is also charged with a shooting at a SEPTA station in September
Davis, 19, is accused of firing a gun at SEPTA’s Tasker-Morris station on Sept. 25. No one was injured.
Robert Davis, the 19-year-old accused of killing journalist and activist Josh Kruger, has also been charged with attempting to shoot someone at a SEPTA station in September.
Davis was arrested last week and charged with murder after police said he entered the home of Kruger, 39, earlier this month and shot him three times, killing him.
Court records show he now faces a string of additional charges, including aggravated assault and illegal gun possession, stemming from a shooting at SEPTA’s Tasker-Morris station on Sept. 25 — just days before he allegedly killed Kruger.
According to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest, Davis approached a man from behind on the platform around 5 a.m. and “attempted to reach around him.” When the man tried to fight back, the report says, Davis pulled a gun from his waistband and fired it once in the man’s direction. No one was struck, and Davis fled the station, the affidavit said.
A detective with SEPTA Transit Police recovered surveillance video showing that Davis fled west on Tasker Street, according to the affidavit. As he walked through the South Philadelphia neighborhood, multiple videos appeared to show him “at times attempting to break into cars and houses,” according to the report.
He was also carrying a blue duffel bag, the affidavit said. Detectives recovered it the next day among a pile of trash, and inside was a computer monitor, hard drive, keyboard, and a broken hover board, the document said. Police also recovered fingerprints from one of the cars he allegedly attempted to break into, but it’s unclear whether they were a match to Davis.
Transit detectives did not make the connection to Davis until Oct. 6, when Philadelphia Police issued a warrant for his arrest and shared a photo of him that “strongly resembled” the man who fired the gun on the platform, the records say. SEPTA police then showed that photo to the victim from the station, and he identified Davis as his attacker.
The new charges add further complexities to Davis’ background and story in relation to Kruger’s killing.
Davis’ mother and older brother have said Davis and Kruger had been in a sex- and drug-fueled relationship since Davis was just 15. The family has said Davis told them Kruger had been trying to blackmail him with sexually explicit videos of him before police say Davis killed him. His mother has said that while she does not condone the violence, she believes her son is a victim, too.
The family also said Davis was addicted to drugs, including meth, which exacerbated his mental health and behavioral troubles over the years. He had grown increasingly erratic, and often sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night, they said.
Damica Davis said the latest charges are merely allegations against her son, whom she called loving and spiritual. She acknowledged her son’s behavior has deteriorated in recent months, but said it is driven by his addiction to drugs and alcohol.
The court records also offered new details in the killing of Kruger and how police tied Davis to the scene.
According to the records, police initially believed a different man who struggled with a meth addiction — and who visited Kruger’s house a few hours before the murder — had killed him. But after detectives examined Kruger’s phone, they found text messages and voicemails that led them to Davis.
Police recovered a voicemail on Kruger’s phone that was recorded just three minutes before he was killed. In the recording, police could hear a person they believe to be Kruger arguing with someone at his front door. The person told Kruger he left his RAW rolling papers inside and needed to get them, and Kruger angrily replied that he was asleep and told the person to “get out of here,” according to the records.
“I’m tired of you being mean to me,” Kruger could be heard saying.
Detectives said the phone number that left the voicemail matches a number that belongs to Davis. A witness on the block also told police Davis matched the person they saw at the scene.
The records say text messages between Kruger and Davis also suggested Davis had done work on Kruger’s basement, and had broken his window and stolen multiple guns from him — incidents that had not been reported to police. And content on the phone also indicated the two were in an intimate relationship, the records say.
When police searched Davis’ bedroom in his South Philadelphia home, they found a black and silver handgun, according to the documents. Inside the gun’s chamber were multiple brass-colored .40-caliber rounds that police said matched the size and style of cartridge casings found at the scene.
The Philadelphia Defender Association, which is representing Davis, declined to comment. He’s being held without bail at the city’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.