{"id":267956,"date":"2026-08-19T04:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T04:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/267956\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T04:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T04:36:14","slug":"philadelphia-murder-suspect-released-from-prison-weeks-earlier-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/267956\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia murder suspect released from prison weeks earlier \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Philadelphia man accused of fatally shooting a store worker during an attempted robbery<\/a> was released from prison two weeks earlier, the NBC10 Investigators have learned.<\/p>\n

Hassan Coleman, 29, is charged with murder, robbery and other offenses for the July 6 shooting death of Shawn Caddell<\/a> inside Lee’s Cold Beer and Deli on the 4900 block of North Broad Street.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections confirmed Coleman was released June 22 after serving a 10-year prison sentence tied to aggravated assault and gun convictions. <\/p>\n

Court records show he entered state custody in 2016 as part of a negotiated guilty plea.<\/p>\n

After the shooting, a witness told investigators they heard a disturbance in the back of the store, and someone say, “Empty your pockets,” moments before gunfire erupted. <\/p>\n

Detectives said surveillance video captured a man later identified as Coleman confronting Caddell and attempting to rob him.<\/p>\n

“There is a brief struggle as the victim is emptying the contents of his pockets onto the floor when the offender fires six shots at the victim in his attempt to flee,” homicide detectives wrote in court documents.<\/p>\n

Investigators tracked a car seen on surveillance dropping off and later picking up the suspected gunman. <\/p>\n

A witness told detectives he drove a man he knew as “Curry” to the deli and that the man returned to the car armed with a handgun and admitted he had shot someone inside. <\/p>\n

The witness later identified Coleman from a photograph, documents said.<\/p>\n

Police released surveillance images of the suspect several days after the shooting as investigators worked to identify him. <\/p>\n

Detectives later received a tip from an anonymous source identifying Coleman as the gunman, with the information that he had been released from state prison about two weeks before the killing.<\/p>\n

Because of his prior aggravated assault conviction, Coleman was prohibited from legally possessing a firearm, documents said.<\/p>\n

Police in Harrisburg arrested Coleman on July 31, police said.<\/p>\n

Court records show Coleman was denied bail at his initial court appearance. <\/p>\n

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31. <\/p>\n

Coleman’s attorney, Douglas Dolfman, told NBC10 he was prepared to present a strong defense.<\/p>\n

NBC10 investigative reporter David Charns can be reached at david.charns@nbcuni.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Philadelphia man accused of fatally shooting a store worker during an attempted robbery was released from prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12223,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-267956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nbc10-investigators","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267956","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=267956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}