{"id":162957,"date":"2026-04-11T03:04:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/162957\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T03:04:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:04:19","slug":"person-killed-in-house-fire-tuesday-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/162957\/","title":{"rendered":"Person killed in house fire Tuesday identified"},"content":{"rendered":"

An affidavit of probable cause for a Philadelphia man\u2019s arrest has shed some additional details into a deadly burglary and house fire Tuesday night in Collingdale.<\/a><\/p>\n

Barry E. Roberts, 44, of the 5000 block of Kershaw Avenue, is charged with numerous offenses in the case after being taken into custody early Wednesday outside the residence on the unit block of Rhodes Avenue.<\/p>\n

An alleged co-conspirator, Dayvon Terry, 35, was found dead inside the residence, which had previously been occupied by a former Radnor Middle School teacher accused of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 15 years old in Texas.<\/p>\n

That former resident, Michael Robinson, 43, was extradited to Texas on those charges in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is unclear if the three men knew one another and what caused Terry\u2019s death. The Delaware County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office referred questions to the county public relations department. County Communications Director Michael Connolly said an inquiry into the death is ongoing.<\/p>\n

A toxicology screening to determine the cause and manner of death is expected to take anywhere for four to eight weeks, but the time and date of death has been listed as 3:03 a.m. April 8.<\/p>\n

According to an affidavit of probable cause for Roberts\u2019 arrest filed by Delaware County Detective Christopher Karr:<\/p>\n

Police were alerted to a burglary in progress at about 9:27 p.m. The caller stated that she was watching surveillance cameras inside the Rhodes Avenue address and saw two unknown males inside with handguns.<\/p>\n

That woman identified herself to Karr as the caretaker of the property and said no one had permission to be inside.<\/p>\n

According to surveillance videos she released to detectives, a man identified as Terry enters the residence at 9:24 p.m. through the rear door. He is carrying a black firearm with a blue grip, and walks through the property to the front door, where he lets Roberts in and hands him the gun.<\/p>\n

Between 9:24 and 9:32, the two men are seen filling trash bags with shoes.<\/p>\n

At 9:31 p.m., a Collingdale police officer can be seen approaching the front door.<\/p>\n

The affidavit then skips forward a significant amount of time to 12:45 a.m., when Roberts is taken into custody after exiting the house through a front basement window.<\/p>\n

The firearm seen in the video is later recovered from the basement.<\/p>\n

The affidavit provides no more detail except that Roberts is ineligible to possess a firearm due to prior convictions.<\/p>\n

Prior Daily Times reporting on the case indicated police from Collingdale and neighboring jurisdictions arrived on scene about 9:27 p.m.<\/p>\n

Police quickly surrounded the house, which backs up to a railroad line, and called in the Emergency Response Team.<\/p>\n

The ERT vehicle was pulled in front of the house. At some point, through the surveillance cameras, police believed one burglar was on the second floor and the other in the basement.<\/p>\n

Officers advised residents living nearby to stay in the basements of their houses.<\/p>\n

Police said they were going to throw canisters into the house at about 1 a.m., but it was not clear exactly when that occurred.<\/p>\n

Fire stations were called about 2:15 a.m., and crews entered the house and worked on extinguishing the flames, including in the basement.<\/p>\n

Firefighters cleared the scene shortly after 3:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

After some point, the medical examiner\u2019s office arrived and removed a body, later identified as Terry.<\/p>\n

Roberts is meanwhile facing charges of burglary, conspiracy, criminal trespass, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and firearms offenses.<\/p>\n

He remains in custody pending 10% of $300,000 bail and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Lee Cullen Grimes on April 17. No defense attorney is listed on online court records.<\/p>\n

Staff reporter Pete Bannan contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An affidavit of probable cause for a Philadelphia man\u2019s arrest has shed some additional details into a deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[38919,202,212,182,139,28,69,71,70,210],"class_list":["post-162957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-collingdale","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-delaware-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-top-stories-dtd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}