PHILADELPHIA — Eric Lewis, the man charged with killing a Philadelphia police officer and seriously wounding another during the weekend, was charged with the murder of a 32-year-old man in West Philadelphia six years ago.

But the case against Lewis in the fatal shooting of Christopher Williams fell apart at a trial in 2023 after a series of issues with the police investigation and prosecution, according to four people familiar with the case. A judge found Lewis not guilty of the crimes, and he walked free.

Now, three years later, police say Lewis, 35, shot two Philadelphia police officers on his West Philadelphia porch early Saturday, then fired at nine other responding officers in a nearly hourlong standoff. He was later arrested by a SWAT team. In his possession were a shotgun and two handguns — one of which police said he stole from an officer he shot.

The shooting left Officer Shane Seiber, 40, a 10-year police veteran, dead hours later. His 33-year-old partner, who has nine years on the force, was shot 12 times and remains hospitalized.

Lewis’ criminal history — particularly how he could have evaded justice in a crime that likely would have sent him to prison for decades — has come under scrutiny in the aftermath of a crime that has shattered the local law enforcement community and left Seiber’s family mourning the father of two children.

It has also reopened wounds for the family of the man Lewis was accused of killing in August 2019.

When Darlene Brown saw Lewis’ mugshot come across her phone Saturday evening, she said she screamed in shock that the man she believes killed her son had killed again.

Brown, in an interview at her West Philadelphia home on Monday, said that she is praying for Seiber’s family and that Lewis is finally brought to justice. But she also resents how her son’s case fell apart three years ago.

“These kids didn’t have to be fatherless had they done their job back in 2023,” Brown said.

“They had him in 2023,” she said. “They freed that murderer, and it took him three years to come back and do it again.”

Sgt. Eric Gripp, a police department spokesperson, said officials were reviewing Lewis’ criminal history, including the handling of the earlier murder case.

District Attorney Larry Krasner did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

A concerned judge

Lewis’ criminal convictions date back to 2012 for a series of misdemeanors, including simple assault, carrying a gun in public, and disorderly conduct.

But at least two serious cases against him fell apart at trial.

Court records show Lewis was charged in September 2020 with endangering the welfare of children, making terroristic threats, aggravated assault, and related crimes. Prosecutors later declined to move forward with the case at a trial in November 2022.

Additional details on the case were not immediately available.

In the fall of 2020, while Lewis was jailed on a separate case, he was charged with murder and related crimes for shooting Williams on the 900 block of Fallon Street on Aug. 31, 2019.

Brown said that her son, who got married one year earlier, was driving a Jeep on Fallon Street but was blocked in by a Nissan double-parked in the street. Williams, she said, honked his horn.

He exchanged words with people connected to the car, she said. Then, prosecutors said, Lewis pulled a gun and fired multiple times into the Jeep, fatally striking Williams.

A source familiar with the investigation said Lewis was identified as a suspect after a police officer from the 15th District came forward with information about the case and identified Lewis as the gunman. That officer was dating someone in Lewis’ family, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But for reasons that were not immediately clear, that officer did not testify at the April 2023 trial before Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O’Keefe, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the case.

One of Williams’ friends, who was in the passenger seat of the Jeep when the shooting erupted, later testified at trial and identified Lewis as the gunman, Brown said.

Prosecutors showed a video of the shooter’s Nissan driving in the area before the crime, Brown said. And, she said, the shooting occurred outside the home of Lewis’ mother.

But prosecutors did not present Lewis’ cell phone location records at the trial, the source said, and it wasn’t clear if the homicide detective or prosecutor on the case ever obtained or analyzed those records.

O’Keefe ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove Lewis’ guilt, and found him not guilty.

After the trial, O’Keefe spoke with the attorneys on the case and faulted the investigation, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The judge was so upset that he contacted the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit, three people with knowledge of his actions said.

The outcome of that internal investigation was not immediately clear.

Gripp, the police department spokesperson, said officials were reviewing the case and internal affairs records, and that the department would provide additional information at a later date.

“Our immediate focus remains on supporting Officer Shane Seiber’s family, our recovering officer and his family, and the members of this department as we navigate this devastating loss,” he said.

‘They had him’

Brown, 63, said she did not recall issues with the homicide detective’s testimony. She was upset, though, about how the district attorney’s office prosecuted the case, she said.

The case was transferred between at least two prosecutors, she said, before another took it over before trial.

She said the assistant district attorney was passive during the trial, and after the acquittal, she apologized but did not offer an explanation for what went wrong.

Brown said she left the courthouse devastated — but also feeling as if there was more to it that she didn’t know.

“Something was very off,” she said of the case.

“And now someone else ... had to lose their life, when they had him,” said Williams’ older sister, Royce Johnson. “They had him.”

Williams was born and raised in West Philadelphia, and worked in construction and as a commercial truck driver. He was funny and charismatic, his family said. He gave strong bear hugs, and loved taking his many nieces and nephews for days at the pool, and going on family trips across the region — to Disney, Busch Gardens and Atlantic City.

His family said they will never be the same.

His mother said seeing Lewis on the news has made her relive the trauma of her son’s killing all over again — the call, the hospital, the trial that left her without closure.

“Since the day I lost my son, I haven’t allowed myself to feel it,” she said. “I keep thinking that if I do, I won’t come back.”

And she couldn’t stop thinking of Officer Seiber’s wife and children, she said.

She paused and touched her face. Her eyes welled with tears, and for a moment, she allowed herself to cry.

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