The sister of a 22-year-old Penn State student shot dead steps from his own front door after an apparent attempted phone robbery has broken down in tears on live television, saying she cannot understand how anyone could do this to her family as police hunt the killers with no arrests made.
Billy Schmidt was fatally shot in the chest at around 1.30am on Saturday while walking home through southern Philadelphia after watching the NBA Finals. He was just months from graduating with a degree in digital journalism and media. The shooting happened directly across the street from his family’s house.
His sister Anna struggled to compose herself during a televised interview with Fox News, speaking through tears with her father Bill standing beside her, his arm around her shoulder, staring at the ground. “I miss him so much,” she said. “I don’t understand how someone could do this to me and my family. I think he’s just gonna walk in the door.”
Surveillance footage captured by multiple neighbours’ cameras recorded the moments leading up to the killing. Two young men in dark hooded clothing can be seen approaching Billy, who is heard saying “Give me back my phone.” He followed the pair down the block and around a corner. One of the men threw the phone back just as Billy caught up — and the other raised a handgun and fired a single shot. Billy was rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and was pronounced dead just 17 minutes after the shooting. He was 22 years old.
His father found his son’s phone under a car near the scene and handed it to police, who have described the device as a potentially critical piece of evidence. Officers are hoping to lift DNA from the handset and have recovered a spent bullet casing from the scene. They are also working to obtain additional camera footage in search of angles that might more clearly show the suspects’ faces, as the existing footage does not capture identifiable features. Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Bill Fritze told CBS News that detectives “are working diligently and have been back out to the scene to survey and recover anything else.”
“I want to find the two people and make them pay,” Billy’s father told 6abc Philadelphia.
Penn State said in a statement it was “heartbroken” by the news and that student affairs staff were reaching out to the family. Roman Catholic High School, from which Billy graduated in 2021, remembered him as someone whose “kindness, character, and spirit left a lasting impression on all who knew him.”
His father described his son simply as “a really good person who cared about everybody and never hurt or bothered a soul. For him to get shot like that is a travesty.” A GoFundMe has been established for the Schmidt family, in which Anna described her brother as “a beloved brother, friend, and member of our community.”
No arrests have been announced.
