Murder on Rittenhouse Square

[CHIOSSO]

Murder in Philadelphia
Monday, Dec. 22, 1975

John Shivery Knight III was a young man with a future. At 30, he was special-projects editor of an afternoon tabloid, the Philadelphia Daily News. He had a $1,050-a-month apartment in a large building on Philadelphia's fashionable Rittenhouse Square and an art collection worth about $100,000. As a respected reporter for the Detroit Free Press, he had won an American Bar Association award. Most important, he was the millionaire grandson and a presumed heir of John S. Knight, 81, founder of the Knight-Rider Newspapers Inc., the chain that includes some 35 daily papers, such as the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald and the morning Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as the News. Unknown to most of his friends, the chunky bachelor was also a homosexual who frequented the nearby "merry-go-round" area of the city, where he sought out male prostitutes and dropped in at leather bars.

Murder in Philadelphia - TIME

City of Brotherly Mayhem - Google Book Search by Ron Avery
page 135__________________

TIP OF THE HAT TO Bryson662001

The Dorchester at 20th and Locust which was a rental building at the time and probably the fanciest one in town.. For anyone who lives there it was the 19th floor, a two bedroom and a three bedroom combined with at least one facing the square. Don't know if it was north or south side.I have a paperback copy of "Kings Don't Mean a Thing" and it seems to be an exhaustive investigation, even if Arther Bell does drag too many of his personal homo hangups into the story. I am sure you can find a copy through Google and it is an important part of Philly history for the world it describes IMO.
Also a book about the murder of John Knight.

Kings Don't Mean a Thing: The John Knight Murder Case
by Arthur Bell

Arthur Bell was a writer for The Village Voice for many years till his death in 1984

9780688033439 - Kings Don't Mean a Thing: The John Knight Murder Case by Bell, Arthur - 0688033431

Sketch of Killers
http://media.philly.com/images/1975_...81230_0412.jpg

Crime Scene

http://media.philly.com/images/1975_...81230_0413.jpg

http://media.philly.com/images/1975_...81230_0410.jpg

John S Knight III

http://media.philly.com/images/1975_...81230_0411.jpg

[CHIOSSO]

Salvatore Soli mother lived very close to me as a kid. The day after the killing the cops were pulling up all the manhole covers in my neighborhood. When he was finally caught, the cops and reporters were all around his moms house. This was before cellphones, so when the reporters got their stories they ran and knocked on neighbors doors to use their phones. The reporter from the Bulletin used the one in my house. It was all very bizarre.

When his mother died they had the wake and viewing at her house. They brought him to see her in shackles and cuffs. Like I said it was all very bizarre.

[CHIOSSO]

A TIP OF THE HAT TO DOGFACEDBOY 04-13-2008

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Steve Melino grew up in Grays Ferry and had moved to the 10th and Snyder area about a year before all of this happened.
He hung out with us at 30th and Tasker for a few years {around 1964 or 65} before he had moved.
Recently a childhood friend of mine told me that Steve had died of a heart attack in prison a few years ago.
It's really crazy when looking at pictures back when we were kids around 13 or 14 and seeing Steve as a young happy kid, while knowing he spent most of his life as a hardened criminal behind bars and died there.
Soli had died in prison about 10-15 years before Steve.