The fluorescent lights in the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office buzz like a swarm of angry hornets. On October 23, 2025, under that merciless glare, Dr. Lindsey Harper peeled back the tarp that had hidden Kada Scott’s body for two weeks and delivered the verdict that turned a city’s quiet dread into a roar of rage. One gunshot wound to the head, entry through the right temple, exit through the occipital bone, close-range, no defensive wounds, manner of death: homicide.

Kada Scott—23, Penn State nursing graduate, caregiver at the Terrace at Chestnut Hill, aspiring spa owner, daughter, sister, light—was executed in twenty minutes flat.

Her ex-boyfriend, Keon King, 21, now sits in Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, held without bail on a rap sheet that reads like a horror novel: murder, kidnapping, robbery, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, arson, conspiracy, stalking, possession of an instrument of crime. On October 24, Municipal Court Judge Wendy Pew denied bond with a single sentence. “The nature of these allegations shocks the conscience of this court.”

This is not another statistic in Philadelphia’s 2025 blood ledger—over 200 homicides, 80 percent Black victims, 40 percent tied to intimate partners. This is the story of a young woman who kissed her family goodbye at 9:15 p.m. on October 4, stepped into the night, and never came home.

The last time Angela Scott saw her daughter alive, Kada was slipping on her navy scrubs, the ones with tiny sunflowers embroidered on the pocket. Angela, a SEPTA bus driver whose hands still smell of bleach and coffee, hugged her tight. “Late shift, Mom. Be back by 7 a.m. with Wawa hoagies.” Marcus, grease under his nails from the garage, yelled from the porch, “Text when you clock out!” Lena, 17, Kada’s shadow, snapped a selfie: two sisters in scrubs, matching braids, matching dreams.

At 9:45 p.m., security footage at the Terrace at Chestnut Hill shows Kada clocking in, AirPods in, SZA on repeat. She waves at coworker Tasha, mouths “Save me a cookie.” Her phone pings. Kel (Keon King): “We need to talk. Outside.” She ignores it. She’s done this dance before.

By 11:30 p.m., she’s on break, pacing the employee parking lot under sodium lamps that turn everything orange. Her phone explodes. Eleven thirty-one: “I see your car.” Eleven thirty-two: “Come outside or I’m coming in.” Eleven thirty-three: “This ain’t a game.” Twelve calls in forty-seven minutes. She answers the first. “Stop. We’re done.” The rest go to voicemail. At 11:44 p.m., her phone pings its last tower—Germantown and Chelten. Twenty minutes later, she is dead.

Two teenage hikers cut through the chain-link fence behind Ada H. Lewis Middle School on October 18, a shuttered husk since 2012. Vines choke the windows; graffiti screams “R.I.P.” in faded red. They smell it first—sweet, metallic, wrong. A tarp, half-buried under leaves. A hand. A Penn State class ring engraved “Shine On.” By dusk, the lot is a crime scene: floodlights, K-9s, detectives in Tyvek suits. The body is wrapped in a blue moving blanket, duct-taped at the ankles. DNA confirms it by October 19. The medical examiner’s report, released October 23, is clinical and cruel. Single perforating gunshot wound of the head. Stippling present. Trajectory: right-to-left, downward. No exit wound recovered—bullet lodged in soil beneath skull. Time of death: approximately 11:50 p.m., October 4, 2025. No struggle. No mercy. Just a bullet and a shallow grave.

Keon King met Kada in January 2024 at a Mount Airy church picnic. He was the charming barber with sketches of his future salon taped inside his Bible. She was the nursing student who volunteered at the church nursery, braiding little girls’ hair between sermons. By March, the charm curdled. Texts at 2 a.m.: “Who you with?” Showing up at her clinical rotations. In January 2025, he was arrested for kidnapping another woman—snatched her off her porch, drove her to a parking garage, pistol-whipped her. Released on $200,000 bail. Case dismissed in September after the victim “recanted.”

October 3, the day before Kada vanished, PPD raided King’s Sprague Street apartment on a stolen vehicle tip. They found an unregistered Glock 19. No arrest. Just a warning. That night, Kada texted him: “Leave me alone or I’m calling the cops.” He replied: “Try it. See what happens.”

Kada’s phone last pinged near East Falls. Her 2008 Hyundai Accent was found torched in a vacant lot off Kelly Drive—VIN matching King’s rental history. Tips flooded 215-686-TIPS: “Saw him at a Dover barbershop, bragging.” “He asked me to help move a ‘heavy bag.’” On October 14, King surrendered at his aunt’s house in Delaware County. Hands up, hoodie bloodstained, eyes flat. Initial charges: kidnapping, false imprisonment, stalking—$2.5 million bail. October 22: murder added. October 24: bond denied.

Angela Scott hasn’t slept since October 4. She keeps Kada’s scrubs folded on the dresser, still smelling of lavender detergent. Marcus welds in silence—his garage now a shrine of half-finished projects: a pink bike for Lena’s birthday, stalled. Lena sketches her sister’s face in the margins of her chemistry notebook. “She promised to do my prom makeup. Now I do it alone.”

Their statement, released October 22 through DA Larry Krasner: “Kada was kind-hearted, hardworking, full of promise. She wanted to open a spa called Kada’s Glow—where Black women could breathe. We are shattered, but we will not be silenced. Justice for Kada means safety for every daughter walking home at night.”

On October 20, a candlelight vigil at Ada Lewis drew 200 people, purple balloons, sunflowers—Kada’s favorite. On October 22, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson announced Resolution 250927—a hearing on vacant school security and domestic violence response failures. On October 25, the School District suspended classes district-wide for “safety audits.” Crews cleared debris from Ada Lewis; chain-link reinforced. A GoFundMe has raised over $78,000—funeral costs, therapy, seed money for the Kada’s Glow Foundation.

Terrace security cam shows Kada entering King’s Hyundai at 11:44 p.m. The torched Accent yielded fingerprints, Kada’s blood in the trunk. Her recovered phone held deleted texts—King: “If I can’t have you, nobody will.” A TikTok live from October 3 shows him waving a Glock, caption “For the ops.” A witness saw a second figure digging at the grave site under cover of darkness.

Philadelphia’s 2025 homicide tally stands at 250 and climbing, with Black women six times more likely to be killed by partners than white women. Everytown Research calls it a femicide epidemic. Kada joins Tionna Harris, 22, shot by her beau in May; Aaliyah McClain, 19, strangled in July. Angela told NBC10, voice steel: “Kada texted for help—where were we?”

Mothers In Charge, founded by Dorothy Johnson-Speight after her son’s murder, has wrapped the Scotts in grief counseling and peer support. CHOP’s violence prevention unit offers free therapy; CeaseFirePA lobbies for red-flag laws. Lena, fierce at 17, speaks at forums: “Sis taught love wins—let’s arm it with action.”

King’s preliminary hearing is set for November 15. The hunt for the second suspect continues. The Scotts have planted sunflowers at the grave site—Kada’s bloom—whispering dreams deferred. Her ring, etched “Shine On,” rests on Angela’s chain. The medical examiner’s words scar, but they don’t define. Kada’s light is unextinguished, fueling a reckoning. In Philly’s fractured heart, her story screams: protect the dreamers, before the dark claims another.