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And so Francis Fuller funded and personally promoted a nonprofit organization he called Lex Talionis, from the Latin phrase for the “law of talion,” which more or less translated as “an eye for an eye”—which, of course, was the meting out of punishments that matched the crimes. The logotype of Lex Talionis had the “o” as a stylized eyeball.
The offices for Lex Talionis took up half of the first floor of a five-story brick building on the tree-lined corner of North Third and Arch Streets. Fuller said he felt the location on Arch, in the historic section of Old City, with the Delaware River just blocks to the east and the Liberty Bell on display just blocks to the west, was more appropriate than any shiny marble-and-glass high-rise office building.
Francis Franklin Fuller V’s belief in the fundamental philosophy of Lex Talionis was strong and unwavering, and there was a good reason for it: Tragedy had struck him personally.
Five years earlier, his wife and their eight-year-old daughter had been driving home in the early evening of a rainy Saturday, when she had accidentally exited just shy of the Vine Street Expressway she’d been aiming for.
My dearest could get lost in a closet, Fuller later lamented, and that GPS street map in the dash of her Benz may as well have been a video game for all she knew how to operate it.
After getting off the expressway at Spring Garden Str
eet, then driving east and crossing over the Schuylkill Expressway, she’d somehow, maybe because the rain was disorienting, made a wrong turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Shortly thereafter she’d found herself in the North Philadelphia West area, driving down the darkened streets of struggling and failing neighborhoods.
What had happened next was a matter of great speculation. It could have been because of the luxury convertible automobile she was driving. Or it could simply have been an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
According to two eyewitness statements, as the Mercedes waited for a traffic light to turn green, two vehicles flew up to the intersection and squealed to a stop alongside. The second car actually went up over the curb, striking a garbage can and newspaper dispenser box, knocking them over.
Angry words were exchanged between the occupants of the two cars—and suddenly a torrent of gunfire filled the air.
Then the first vehicle ran the red light, followed by the second, both racing off into the night.
The Fullers’ Mercedes-Benz did not move for a couple of minutes, even as the traffic light cycled to green and back to red. Then the car began to roll into the intersection, running the red traffic light and getting struck by an old pickup truck.
The truck did not kill them, although it struck the Mercedes-Benz hard enough to trigger its air bags. The Medical Examiner’s Office determined that both mother and daughter had died when struck by multiple hits of single-aught buckshot from a shotgun—or shotguns. The windows of the Mercedes, and certainly the soft fabric of the convertible top, were no match for the fusillade of lead balls.
The shooters were never caught, despite the extreme pressure Francis Franklin Fuller V placed on everyone from the police department to the offices of the mayor and the governor.
Frustrated, Fuller shortly thereafter announced his new nonprofit organization: “That night, I lost my wife, my child—my family. Sadly, it was a tragedy that could happen to anyone. And those responsible for such harm must be brought to justice and held accountable. To help the police and the justice system do exactly that, today I have established Lex Talionis in honor of my wife and daughter and all other victims in the City of Philadelphia.”
He explained that he had funded the organization with an initial endowment of five million dollars. From that, he said, “Lex Talionis will reward ten thousand dollars cash to any individual who provides information that leads to the arrest, conviction, and/or removal from free society of a criminal guilty of murder or attempted murder, rape or other sexually deviant crime, or illicit drug distribution in the City of Philadelphia. Lex Talionis will work with the Philadelphia Police Department and our courts to protect the identities of those providing the information, keeping them anonymous.”
Every week, usually on Fridays, he ran an announcement restating that message in Philadelphia’s newspapers and on its television stations.
“You don’t like Fuller?” Amanda Law asked Matt Payne.
“Sometimes I do. And sometimes, not so much,” Matt said, turning up the volume. “Here. Let’s see what he’s saying.”
Fuller’s voice filled the bedroom: “As my ancestor Benjamin Franklin wrote in the Year of our Lord 1734, ‘Where carcasses are, eagles will gather. And where good laws are, much people flock thither.’ And so tonight I am personally signing the paperwork for my organization”—he gestured grandly toward the cast-bronze signage listing all his companies that was embedded in the wall behind him, to the line that read LEX TALIONIS, LLC—“to transfer two ten-thousand-dollar rewards into two separate escrow accounts at PNC Bank. These will be payable immediately upon the determination of who is properly responsible for the apprehension of these evildoers.”
There was a smattering of loud applause in the background, and the cameras panned to show the people who were clapping outside of the police crime-scene tape.
Matt said, “Looks like Francis has the support of Batman and—what’s that other character there that’s the supervillain?—the Joker?”
Amanda looked at the screen and made a hmm sound.
“I think that particular Joker costume is supposed to be one of our distinguished city councilmen. You can tell by his trademark black bow tie that looks like a tiny cheap clip-on. And by all those exaggerated dollar-bill bribes—they’re stuffing his pockets to the point of overflowing. The handcuffs on his left wrist are a nice touch. Oh, and there’s a dollar symbol on his coat, kind of like the Riddler had those question marks.”
Payne recalled that the loud cries of corruption in City Hall were back in the news—if they’d ever really left.
Either way, to bow-tied City Councilman H. Rapp Badde, Jr., a thirty-two-year-old native Philadelphian who was alternately charismatic and arrogant, it was simply politics as usual. Which also meant shenanigans as usual, including the hiring of a twenty-five-year-old “highly regarded colleague” as his executive assistant and the use of funds from his election campaign for them to attend a conference on urban renewal in, of all places, Bermuda.
As luck would have it, someone happened to recognize the publicity-happy councilman during the trip. And when a photograph appeared in the news media of the councilman and his tremendously attractive assistant on the beach—wearing, as one TV news wag said, “nothing that could be considered business attire, unless they were employed in a strip club at SeaWorld”—citizens of Philadelphia were furious, perhaps the least happy being Badde’s wife of seven years.
Of course, the councilman, drawing on both his charisma and arrogance, repeatedly stated that it was all being misinterpreted, that the trip had cost the city not one red cent—his excess campaign contributions covered it. Then he spun the subject to what he and his able assistant had learned on advancing urban renewal and how H. Rapp Badde, Jr., was going to change Philly’s fortunes.
The behavior stemmed from the same sort of above-reproach attitude—from the hanky-panky to the deny-and-spin—that he’d learned from his father, Horatio R. Badde, Sr., who’d once held the office Junior now so desperately desired, that of mayor.
To Matt and countless others in Philadelphia, the good news in all this was that there was a genuine first-class person serving as Hizzonor. The Honorable Jerome H. “Jerry” Carlucci was no-nonsense to the point that his detractors—and quite a few admirers—claimed he governed with an iron fist. Unapologetic, Carlucci fought the culture of corruption in City Hall just as he had fought crime in the city before being elected to public office.
