On trial: alleged accomplice in 2024 Wells Street Christmas homicide
- Jamie Duffy
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---One caller driving by said she heard three shots and saw two guys outside a home on Wells Street.
It was Christmas night 2024, a time when most people are with their families or on their way home from visiting Grandma and Grampa.
Philip Rhinehart, 39, the victim, was at his apartment next door to the tiny El Rinconcito restaurant on Wells Street and hadn’t made it to his mother’s that special day.
A deadly game of ding dong doorbell occurred that Christmas night around 6 p.m. when, it is alleged, Shawn Williams, 48, the defendant in this week’s murder trial in Allen Superior Court, and his partner, Chad Kinney, 47, lured Rhinehart to his front door.
There’d also been some threatening texts.
“First, you might to check on who I am and see how real I am about doing this matter fact I’m gonna have to call you matter fact me and Chad are going to come visit you deal…all I gotta do is throw marble at your back…” is one text message tied to Williams’ phone.
When Rhinehart opened the door and called out “who is it,” police say Kinney fired four shots into the apartment. Two made their mark striking Rhinehart in the leg with a bullet graze and a fatal one to his chest.
By the time a friend arrived a half hour later, Rhinehart was dead, the witness’s tearful 9-1-1 call played in court Tuesday.
His eyes were open, she told dispatch, but he wasn’t breathing.
Williams is charged with murder- acting in concert.
Kinney, the one seen on video firing his gun into the apartment, according to Fort Wayne police, is to stand trial at the end of February.
Jurors and the public alike look for a motive in a homicide and Rhinehart’s mother hesitantly provided one from the stand.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tom Chaille asked her if her son had struggled in life and yes, she said, he had. After a construction accident, he turned to drugs to ease the pain.
Many times he tried treatment and rehabilitation, she said, but he always fell back.
“He always wanted to get better, but it was always out of his reach,” she told the court.
When she turned on the local television news that night, she learned there’d been a shooting on Wells Street. She studied the camera shot and thought it looked as though the home was closer to Third or Fourth Street on Wells which would put the shooting a couple of blocks south.
She also kept an eye on her front door just to see if there was a note from the police asking her to call the department.
The next day, as she was preparing to leave her home, an officer appeared on her driveway.
“Is this my son?” she asked him. “Who’s your son?” the officer replied, being careful and waiting for a second officer to appear.
Then, everything was a blur, she said.
Court testimony will continue this week, including references to the text messages and GPS cell phone locations that the prosecution believes solidify the case against Williams.
To view opening arguments, go to YouTube orj The Probable Cause Facebook page.
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