Guilty Plea in 2011 Woodcrest PATCO Shooting, Crime Spree

A Philadelphia man who shot a woman outside the Woodcrest PATCO station in 2011 before going on what authorities dubbed a crime spree pleaded guilty this week, avoiding a trial that was just days away, and now faces 25 years in state prison.

Tyreek Thomas, 21, attacked four women in the course of seven hours on July 24 and 25, 2011, including the first at Woodcrest around 11:30 p.m. on the 24th, where he and a teenage accomplice pistol-whipped a 50-year-old woman in the face, shoved her to the ground and shot her in the side before stealing her purse, according to evidence set to be presented by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Thomas and his accomplice then tried to carjack a 58-year-old woman at Dunkin' Donuts on the White Horse Pike in Lawnside; when that driver sped off, they instead carjacked another woman on Warwick Road, also in Lawnside, pointing a gun at the 45-year-old driver before stealing her Mercury Cougar, according to prosecutors.

The two went after one more woman, a 76-year-old who was sitting in her car on Linden Avenue in Mount Ephraim. Thomas and his accomplice boxed her in around 6:30 a.m. on the 25th using the stolen car, then tapped on her car's window with the gun and demanded cash, before taking off back to Philadelphia, according to prosecutors.

Thomas's codefendant was arrested in the stolen car two days later, and he led police to Thomas, who had the gun from the spree in his house, prosecutors said.

Thomas agreed to plead guilty Thursday to a total of three counts—two of first-degree armed robbery and one of first-degree carjacking—and is expected to be sentenced to 25 years for carjacking and 20 years each on the counts of armed robbery, with the terms to be served concurrently.

He would have to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence—21 years, three months—before being eligible for parole.