By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934
THEY ALL THOUGHT the stink was dead rats.
But Henry Riviera knew, as soon as he unlocked the alley door Wednesday morning, that the pervasive stench came from something far worse. Within minutes, police confirmed the handyman's fears: A corpse slumped, rotting in a sheet under a garbage bag, midway down the alley of the North Philadelphia rooming house where Riviera works.
Still, that discovery was dwarfed by the details that emerged yesterday of how Danielle Winston ended up entombed in the cold, concrete alley: After a spat sometime around Christmas, police say, Ronald Moon repeatedly stabbed Winston, his live-in girlfriend, to death in their bed.
He then hacked a hole through drywall and bricks in their bedroom and shoved his lifeless companion into the adjacent unused alley.
For nearly four months, he slept in the bloody bed, just inches from his late mate, while her desperate family, who reported her missing in December, hunted for her.
"He was sleeping there, next to her, all that time," said Riviera, shaking his head in disbelief.
Yesterday, police announced that on Thursday they had arrested Moon, a 28-year-old father of two and window-installer. He was charged with murder and related offenses in Winston's slaying.
As relatives left a memorial of stuffed animals and candles outside the rooming house on Diamond Street near Palethorpe, Riviera spent the day in rubber gloves, liberally dousing everything in sight with bleach and other cleaners.
But creepy remnants remained.
The dark, covered alley - barely wide enough to walk through - still reeked of decomposition. The square hole, which police say Moon punched through the wall to dump the body and had been concealed by the bed, remained unfixed.
The bag with Winston's body would have been close enough to touch through the hole.
Above was a window overlooking the alley; wood had been hammered over part of the window, leaving just enough glass uncovered to allow a peek at the horror outside.
And still-wet spackle glistened on small holes that had polka-dotted the walls of the cramped room where Winston, 32, was killed.
"That's where he put the incense" to mask the corpse's odor, Riviera said, holding up a fragrant bag bulging with incense sticks.
On Wednesday, neighbors had swarmed the scene, speculating that the body belonged to Betty "BeeBee" David, a 16-year-old from the neighborhood who went missing in February.
But one neighbor wasn't surprised when she heard that the Medical Examiner's Office had identified Winston as the homicide victim.
Moon had attacked Winston before, said the neighbor, who asked that her name be withheld because she feared reprisal from Moon's relatives and doesn't want to be subpoenaed to court to testify.
Court records show that Winston had gotten a protection order against Moon after he allegedly attacked her last November.
In that incident, he choked her repeatedly until she passed out; when she awoke, according to the records, he snarled at her: "Get up, b----! You ain't dead yet!"
The neighbor said Moon also once bashed her head with a crowbar, leaving a gash that required 22 stitches.
And Moon had been dating another neighborhood woman for the past month, the neighbor said.
"Sicko! He had no morals!" the neighbor said.
For weeks before Wednesday's gruesome find, neighbors had noticed a stench coming from the alley. Many figured it came from dead rats. Owners of the nearby El Sabor restaurant, worried that the stink might drive away customers, demanded the rooming house find its source.
"He must have prayed for snow for the rest of his life," said one neighbor, noting that the unusually cold and snowy winter likely delayed detection of the dead woman.
Last night, Dietra Jubilee and Renee McCain stopped outside the rooming house to pay respects to their slain friend.
"She was a good person, a hardworking woman who just got hooked up with the wrong man," Jubilee said.
She said Winston, a certified nursing assistant, was last seen alive on Christmas after spending time with her family.
"She was the sweetest person in the world," McCain said.
A vigil will be held for Winston tonight at 7:30 at 2nd and Diamond streets.
Staff writer Christine Olley contributed to this report.
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