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PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — According to law enforcement sources, DNA analysis by the medical examiner has preliminarily identified the body discovered on Saturday as having links to Kada Scott’s parents.
This grim find was located behind an abandoned school close to Awbury Arboretum in Germantown, a spot that had been thoroughly searched last Wednesday.
First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford shared that a highly specific anonymous tip was received overnight, prompting officers to revisit the location around 10 a.m.
Additionally, sources informed Action News that surveillance footage pertinent to the investigation was obtained from a nearby recreation center.
The remains, which Stanford indicated appear to belong to a female, were uncovered in a shallow grave within a densely forested area.
The remains were removed from the scene by late afternoon. The remains are now being handled by the medical examiner’s office, which will also handle identifying the person who was found.
Stanford said investigators have been in touch with Scott’s family.
“We have been in communication with her family as to this process and in the fact that we have recovered a human being,” he said.
Stanford urged the public to continue providing information related to this case by calling 215-686-TIPS (8477).
Sources say police found physical evidence at the scene during Wednesday’s search, including Scott’s debit card and a phone case.
Police say tips had been flooding in after they announced the arrest of 21-year-old Keon King of Southwest Philadelphia, who authorities say was the last person in contact with Scott.
King has been arrested and charged with kidnapping and other offenses in connection with Scott’s disappearance.
Police are still working to determine how King and Scott knew each other, but they believe the pair came into contact in the days before the disappearance.
Before her disappearance, Scott had told people that she was being harassed, but it is unclear if King was the person allegedly harassing her.
Scott vanished the night of Saturday, Oct. 4, after leaving her workplace, an assisted living facility in Chestnut Hill.
King is being held on $2.5 million bail.
Charges being refiled in earlier, similar case
King is also facing charges in what officials call a similar case from earlier this year in which a woman was allegedly kidnapped and strangled, but survived.
Those charges were dropped when the accuser failed to appear in court, but will now be refiled, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said.
In the first case, the prosecutor said King kidnapped a woman from in front of her house, “threw her in her car, assaulted her and eventually let her out.”
D.A. Larry Krasner addressed the case during a news conference on Friday, saying his office could have done more.
“We could have done better in that. A really sophisticated approach to the case would have been to try to put it all in with video evidence,” he said.
The incident was captured partly in a viral video. Investigators say it shows King peering through and knocking on windows while a person inside yells to call the police and for him to go away.
Krasner noted King being out on bail as a reason why the victim didn’t appear in court.
“The reason they had to worry he was going to come out of the same door they went in the courthouse right after they testified against him is because he was on bail,” said Krasner.
King was able to post 10% of $200,000 bail in his first kidnapping arrest.
When asked why the DA’s office didn’t petition for a higher bail, Krasner said it was a strategic decision not to bother judges overnight.
“You have the option of trying to do what is often a midnight or three o’clock in the morning telephonic appeal to a municipal court judge,” said Krasner. “The unfortunate reality of this is that some, but not all of these judges, don’t want you calling them in the middle of the night. And if you do, they lower the bail. They don’t raise it, they don’t leave it. They lower it. So it is always a complex, strategic decision.”
Marty O’Rourke, a spokesperson for the courts, said in response:
“With all due respect, the DA and his staff know there are assigned Municipal and Commons Pleas Court judges on call 24/7 and prepared at any hour to address emergency Court matters. In light of this truth, the DA’s comments are appallingly disrespectful and a sad attempt on his part to find a scapegoat for his own failings on this matter.”
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