Philadelphia’s medical examiner’s office has ruled the fatal shooting of a 21-year-old student from last month as a homicide and made an arrest, following a 12-day investigation that concluded Friday.
Officer Leeloni Palmiero, a Philadelphia Police spokeswoman, said the city medical examiner’s office determined that the death of Agatha Hall—whose name was released today—was a homicide because of the position of her body when police found her and the angle at which the bullet traveled through her head, Palmiero said.
According to a press release from Philadelphia Police’s Public Affairs department, testing conducted last Thursday revealed it would have been “impossible” for the victim’s gunshot to be “self-inflicted.”
Palmiero previously told The Temple News that officers responded to a radio call from the 2300 block of N. Park Avenue early Aug. 31. When they arrived and entered Hall’s apartment, they found her lying on her bedroom floor with a handgun under her hand, and a bullet hole in the ceiling. Paramedics pronounced her dead at around 12:35 a.m.
The motive for the shooting was an argument, and police have arrested a 29-year-old man in connection to the incident, Palmiero said Wednesday. According to a press release, Brandon Meade, who lives on the 7100 block of Stockley Road in Upper Darby, has been arrested and charged with the murder of Hall.
Philadelphia Police—who were initially treating the shooting as a suicide—re-classified the case after the department’s Homicide Unit determined it was “suspicious.”
According to her LinkedIn page, Hall was a finance major, and was set to graduate later this year. She previously graduated from Northeast High School in 2011.
Steve Bohnel can be reached at steve.bohnel@temple.edu or on Twitter @Steve_Bohnel.