A Philadelphia homicide detective already under investigation for allegedly covering up evidence of a murder is being investigated for his role in two other murder cases and the case of a man's disappearance, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said Wednesday.
Detective Ron Dove, a 16-year veteran, was removed from street work earlier this month amid allegations that he helped his girlfriend, Erica Sanchez, leave the state after she was suspected of stabbing her ex-boyfriend to death in North Philadelphia in September.
Internal Affairs is now trying to determine whether Dove used his role as lead detective in a 2010 case to stifle the murder investigation of a 45-year-old woman shot through the heart at an Olney bar owned by Sanchez's father, police said.
Police are also investigating whether Dove concealed information in a North Philadelphia woman's 2012 shooting death and her friend's disappearance.
Investigators believe those cases have a connection to Sanchez as well, Ramsey said.
"Our homicide unit, Internal Affairs, and the District Attorney's Office are all working closely together on this," Ramsey said in an interview. "Wherever it takes us, it takes us. Whatever we have to do, we'll do. We're not going to leave any stone unturned."
The department does not yet know the full extent of Dove's involvement in the cases, Ramsey said.
"At this point, I don't have enough to accuse him of anything," Ramsey said. "But if there is any misconduct uncovered, I will push it as far as it has to go."
Dove, 41, who has been working homicides since 2005, did not return a phone message Wednesday. Efforts to reach his lawyer were unsuccessful.
Dove has told investigators that he is in love with Sanchez but broke no laws to help her.
Investigators have searched Dove's Northeast Philadelphia apartment and confiscated his cellphones and computers.
Ramsey said he had not requested assistance from the FBI or the state Attorney General's Office, but did not rule out the possibility.
Police became aware of Dove's connection to Sanchez in September, days after she allegedly stabbed her ex-boyfriend Cesar Vera, 32, in the chest during an argument near Fifth and Westmoreland Streets.
Dove told the detective that he knew Sanchez and could bring her in for an interview, sources have told The Inquirer. He also asked the detective to "go easy on her," the sources said.
In his statement to Internal Affairs, Dove said that he and Sanchez had been dating for five years and were engaged to be married.
He said that he left work early on the night of Vera's killing to move Sanchez's car from the crime scene, but that he did not know at the time that Vera had been killed.
He did not remember where he moved the car, he said. Police have yet to recover the vehicle.
In that initial interview, Dove told investigators he did not know where they could find Sanchez, but his phone and credit card records showed that he had driven Sanchez to a hotel in Upstate New York and paid for a room for her to stay, the sources said.
Sanchez turned herself in to Internal Affairs last week and was charged with murder.
Ramsey said Dove had been using vacation time and had not reported to work since being placed on desk duty.
Three years before Vera's death, Dove was the detective assigned to the killing of Leslie Delzingaro, 45, of Dresher. She was shot to death in July 2010 at J.J.'s Lounge at Second and Duncannon Streets.
Delzingaro, a mother of two teenage sons, was at the bar for her job selling decorative lighting when a gunman burst through the door and opened fire on two men sitting at a nearby table. Delzingaro was killed when a bullet pierced her heart.
At the bar Wednesday, Erica Sanchez's uncle, Jose Sanchez, said he and Erica's father, Humberto Sanchez, owned the bar. He said he did not know Dove and had no information on the probe into Delzingaro's killing.
Delzingaro's family memebers say they did not know of Dove's connection to the Sanchez family when they repeatedly tried to reach him after their daughter was killed.
"For a couple of weeks, we'd call every morning, but we'd never hear back," Delzingaro's mother, Eileen DiFrancesco, said Tuesday. She said no one from the Police Department ever called the family.
When the family finally got through to Dove one morning not long after the killing, she said, he sounded "dismissive."
"We have nothing," she said he told the family.
"He did not show any interest in trying to find out who did this," Delzingaro's older sister wrote in an e-mail. "It was kind of, 'Well, what can you do?' attitude."
He told the family he wanted to hold on to Leslie's phone, which they say he never returned.
Family members said they heard nothing from Dove from months. Then, in October 2010, they arranged to meet him at a gathering for families of homicide victims held at the Police Academy.
Dove showed up 45 minutes late, saying he had run out of gas, they said.
He did not apologize or offer condolences, the family said. Instead, they recalled, he told them that he knew the bar owner and described him as a "good friend" and a "great guy."
"What does my family care about the owner of the bar?" DiFrancesco asked. "I lost a daughter, and he wants to tell me how great the owner of the bar is."
That was the last they heard from Dove, they said.
After reading recent news coverage about Dove, they called Internal Affairs and filed a complaint, said Delzingaro's brother-in-law, Gene Davis.
"Initially our concern was that it was a poorly investigated homicide," Davis said Wednesday. "Now it is obvious that there are some serious improprieties. . . . All we want is a true investigation into what happened that night."
Investigators are also trying to determine Dove's connection to the case of Melanie Colon, 22, who was shot six times and left behind a Juniata Park apartment building in May 2012. On Wednesday, her family said they were shocked by news of the investigation into Dove.
"This is the best information that I had since she's passed," Louis Colon, her father, said Wednesday night. "They ain't told me anything."
In the months after his daughter's death, Louis Colon said he called the homicide detectives assigned to the case once a week. Now he calls once a month -- "I don't want to keep bothering them," he said.
It is unclear what connection Dove or Sanchez may have to the case. Louis Colon said he had heard Sanchez's and Vera's names before but could not place them.
For more than a year, the Colons have tried to spread awareness of Melanie's death and search for her killer. A deejay well-known in the city's gay community, she was close to her younger brother, Ralphiee, 19. He last saw her in May as she was getting into a car with Reynaldo Torres, a friend of the family who disappeared with her and is still missing.
The family said detectives kept telling them the same thing: The case was still open, Torres was not considered a suspect in her death, and a probe was continuing.
In May, Colon's mother died of a heart attack that the family says it believes was brought on by the stress of her daughter's death. Melanie Colon's son, Josh, will turn 6 this month.
"The wait, the not knowing, kills us," Ralphiee Colon said.
Copyright 2013 - The Philadelphia Inquirer
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
