Nearly 40 years later, Jimmy Devlin's murder not forgotten
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Nearly 40 years after her father's murder, a local woman hasn't lost hope that the killer will be identified. It was a quiet, but windy late morning at Magnolia Hill Cemetery in Tacony when we met Ryan Devlin. We visited her late father's grave.
"I remember him smelling like old spice," Ryan Devlin said.
At 26, James "Jimmy" Devlin was a heck of a softball player. "Moose" was a slugger at bat. He loved football and coached the Tabor Rams.
April 16, 1985, the Cardinal Dougherty graduate and orderly from the old Parkview Hospital was celebrating his birthday.
"It was Sunday night that we had celebrated his birthday. We sang happy birthday to him and that was the last time we saw him," Ryan Devlin said.
Jimmy's daughter, Ryan Devlin, wasn't even in the first grade yet when she lost her dad.
She recalls the details without hesitation.
"He was on the Avenue of Wyoming and C Street. He was at a place called Matt's Bar. He was barhopping, you know? Celebrating his birthday," she said.
That April night, Jimmy was leaving one tavern and heading to another but "he never made it there. Instead, there were accounts there was a scuffle in the alleyway," Ryan Devlin said.
Noise heard was described as trash cans being tossed around and then a shot. Someone came out to discover Jimmy Devlin lying on the ground. Family lived close by.
"His brother sprinted because someone said, 'Jimmy's been shot.' He was woken up out of his sleep and he came up," Ryan Devlin said. "He passed away in his arms. He bled on the avenue. They took him up to Parkview and that's where he was pronounced dead."
This grieving daughter believes her father's killer is dead too. But over the years, people in the shadows of the near-40-year Murder case have lingered.
"In the case, it was brought up that the person he was involved with romantically. Her husband, they were not legally divorced, he was a person of interest," Ryan Devlin said.
In recent years, Ryan Devlin says she's heard from people after posting about her father's killing. They wanted to pass along information. She's received anonymous phone calls and messages to Facebook and Instagram.
"And when you get onto social media like I did and I saw that people were still talking about this. Not with me prompting anything, not with anybody else prompting anything, but they themselves having memories," Ryan Devlin said.
Ryan says in the aftermath of her dad's murder there were threats. It's believed the killer was effective in keeping witnesses quiet.
"Because after my father's murder I was receiving, I, a 5-year-old little girl, was receiving threatening phone calls," Ryan Devlin said.
These days, she believes people reaching out are genuinely trying to provide information, but time is fleeting and memories are fading.
"I know this is going to get me emotional. This is Rusty. This is one of the only mementos I have from my Dad. And this is something they got me when they had my little brother. So I've kept this with me," Ryan Devlin said.
Ryan Devlin is hoping someone with information will finally consider coming forward to help solve the April 1985 murder of James Jimmy Devlin.
"But there are these times where you cannot help - it just bangs on your door. How? How did it go unsolved for so long? How did no one feel their conscience speak up? How did they not solve it? If it was a pound in the pavement type of thing, why. Like why wasn't it solved? Who was involved," Ryan Devlin said.
If you have information, call 215-686-TIPS.
