An Abington landlord Friday admitted killing his tenant and then dumping his body in a vacant lot.
Landlord Larry Reese, 45, of Delaware County, entered an open guilty plea to charges of involuntary manslaughter for the April 30, 2009, slaying of one-time friend Louis Malachowsky, 54, and abuse of a corpse.
An open plea means that there is no agreement on a sentence between the prosecution and defense and that Reese essentially is throwing himself on the mercy of the court.
Reese, who has been held in the county prison since his arrest last May, could be sentenced to a maximum of 11 to 22 years in jail.
Montgomery County Judge Paul W. Tressler, who accepted the plea, postponed sentencing for at least 90 days while a presentence investigation is conducted by the probation office.
Reese, angry over what he labeled "threatening" text messages he had been receiving from Malachowsky, went to the apartment in the 2200 block of Hamilton Avenue during the early morning hours of April 30. Employed for some 20-plus years as an electrician with SEPTA, Reese "armed" himself with a heavy electrician's insulator used on his job as an overhead electrician. Reese told authorities that he believed the insulator looked like a gun and that he wanted to scare Malachowsky out of the apartment, according to the criminal complaint.
Malachowsky, who had been sleeping, woke up to see Reese standing in the apartment and threatened to call police, the complaint said. Reese told authorities he shouted back at Malachowsky and then apparently hit him in the head with the electrician's device, although he does not recall doing it, according to the criminal complaint.
Reese said that when he left the apartment, Malachowsky was still alive, the complaint said.
Reese returned the following day and found Malachowsky dead on the couch. He wrapped the lifeless body in several blankets before he placed it in a large trash can, the complaint said. Driving his pickup truck to the Frankford section of the city, Reese then dumped the body out of the trash can and onto a vacant lot before leaving, according to the complaint.
Reese and his wife subsequently allegedly removed Malachowsky's belongings from the apartment and tried cleaning the apartment with bleach to remove any blood, the complaint said.
Philadelphia police found Malachowsky's body on the evening of May 1, the same day it was dumped in the lot. The autopsy revealed that the Malachowsky had died from the head injury.
Initially questioned by police, Reese concocted a story that Malachowsky was scheduled to move out on April 30. He told police that he and his wife went to the apartment the following day to clean it up for future tenants, according to the complaint.
Claiming that Malachowsky was being treated for cancer, Reese told detectives that his wife had to clean up blood stains from the floor because Malachowsky sometimes would vomit blood in reaction to medication he was taking, according to the complaint.
