An officer was on patrol around 10:20 p.m. Thursday in the area of Concord Avenue and Lamokin Street, near the high school athletic fields, when he saw the cab in a parking lot.
He found the body of 57-year-old Tony Dillard draped across the back seat. He was wrapped in trash bags and had been stabbed and strangled.
The news stunned his coworkers.
"Shocked, everybody's shocked. Some people are still saying, this couldn't be," said Wil Brown.
For almost 20 years Tony Dillard worked as a dispatcher for Germantown Cab. It was here that he met his fiance, Shawna Jordon. They were to have been married on August 20th, his birthday.
Tony took the day off yesterday to run some errands and get fitted for a tuxedo. He borrowed an off duty cab, because his own car is in the shop. The police don't know yet how he ended up dead in Chester. Dillard lived in Southwest Philadelphia.
His co-workers say he was their rock.
"Please, please come to us. This our family, and one of our family is gone. We need help to find out who did this to Tony," said Pam Coston.
His friends say Tony had no enemies. He was the peacemaker among the cabbies. Lateef Jackson says he was the big brother he never had, a brother who helped him through troubled times.
"We need people like him. I can't believe it happened to him. It is really unnatural for something like this to happen to someone like that, because he really was one of the good ones," said Jackson.
Tony's coworkers and the Chester Police Department are hoping to hear from anyone who may have seen him Thursday night.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Chester Police Detective Joseph McFate at (610) 447-7908 or CID Detective David Tyler at (610) 891-4708.
