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Two Teens Charged With Murder in Traffic Cone Attack on Elderly Man

A 13-year-old girl’s lawyer claims she tried to keep her friends from killing the 73-year-old.

Two teens have been charged with third-degree murder after viral security footage showed a group fatally beat a Philadelphia man to death with traffic cones. James Lambert, 73, died in the hospital a day after the June 24 beating, police say. The teens arrested, a 14-year-old boy and girl, have both been charged as adults. The teenage boy, identified as Richard Jones, turned himself in to police along with his 10-year-old brother last week. While his sibling faces no charges, Jones remains in custody. The girl who faces the murder charge, identified only by her initials GM, turned herself over to authorities on Wednesday morning after arriving at a police station with her mom and her attorney, Lonny Fish. “To lock up these children for a long period of time, do you think that will fix the problem that we have?” Fish told CBS 3. “I would say it’s not.” Fish says he hopes to get the teenager in a juvenile school and keep prosecutors from sending her to prison nearly four years before she’s an adult. It is unclear whether the other children captured on security footage—seven in total—will face similar charges. Three who were captured on camera have yet to turn themselves in, while the 10-year-old brother of Jones and a 13-year-old girl have been released without charges filed against them. The 13-year-old girl, who was identified as the child seen on video covering her mouth in horror midway through Lambert’s beating, also tried to keep her friends from killing the 73-year-old, her attorney claimed to local media.