Originally Posted by Philadelphia Inquirer

Attorney: It wasn't my client who raped, killed teen

By NICOLE WEISENSEE EGAN

weisenn@phillynews.com


Lamar Haymes may have helped dismember, dump and incinerate a 15-year-old Yeadon girl's body, but he's not the one who raped and killed her, Haymes' attorney said yesterday.

"My client said Mr. Gettys did it then came to him and asked him to help dismember her," Robert Keller, a former prosecutor hired by Haymes' family to represent him, said yesterday. He was referring to Anwar Gettys, who also has been arrested in the case.

"It's obvious Mr. Gettys is trying to deflect responsibility to my client," Keller said. "My client is not violent. He's like a teddy-bear type. He's soft-spoken."

Gettys, 22, is charged with abuse of a corpse and related offenses for allegedly helping Haymes get rid of Deanna Wright-McIntosh's body. Haymes has been charged with her rape and murder last month, and is being held without bail.

Keller pointed out that Gettys was arrested in the gang-rape of a 17-year-old North Philadelphia girl in 1999.

"He has the violent criminal history, not my client," Keller said. "The evidence will show that he murdered this young girl after he had raped her, and he was not going to let her leave the residence after the allegation of rape was made."

A spokesman for Delaware County District Attorney Michael Green declined to comment on Keller's statements, as did the Rev. Larry Patrick, a spokesman for Deanna's family.

Gettys, who is being held on $3 million bail in Delaware County, could not be reached for comment. He does not yet have a defense attorney, a court official said.

The 1999 rape Gettys was accused of took place at 40 Linden Ave., in Lansdowne, where Gettys still lives, where Haymes was staying and where authorities believe Deanna was slain. The 1999 victim met Gettys through a teen- chat line called "The Loop" and was at his home on a date, authorities said. Once there, she said, Anwaar; his older brother, Akril, and two other men she could not identify raped her.

Tracie Burns, Anwaar Gettys' attorney for that case, said the sex had been consensual.

The judge declared a mistrial after the July 2000 trial. Prosecutors ultimately dropped charges against the brothers because the victim was too traumatized to testify again.

Haymes was released from state prison in February after serving three years of a two-to-four-year sentence for probation violations on theft and for receiving stolen property charges.

Deanna disappeared on Dec. 3, after an argument with her mother. Friends say Haymes, aka Lamar Price, a friend from the neighborhood, offered her a place to stay. Police found her charred remains in a drum in a vacant lot on 63rd Street near Arch, in West Philadelphia, last week.

Deanna's funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. tomorrow at Mount Olive Baptist Church, 37th Street near Wallace, in Philadelphia.

A preliminary hearing for Haymes and Gettys is scheduled for Jan. 13 in Upper Darby.