Friends and family of 23-year-old Beau Zabel are reeling from shock after learning their loved one was viciously gunned down on a Philadelphia street on June 15, 2008.

Cops say Beau had recently moved from Minnesota to Philadelphia, where he worked as a barista at a Starbucks on South Street. Around 1:30 a.m., cops say Beau finished his late shift and began to walk the few blocks to his home. But Beau never made it.
 
Instead, cops say Beau was shot to death by an unknown gunman as he walked. Cops believe the suspect's motive was robbery: Specifically targeted was the iPod friends and family say Beau was known to carry with him at all times. Reports indicate the iPod was the only thing missing; Beau's wallet and some cash were reportedly still in his backpack, which he'd been carrying at the time of his attack.

Police are now analyzing surveillance video from cameras that captured the area near the crime scene. Cops say one portion of the video shows Beau stopping to buy a soda from a vending machine, then rounding a street corner on his way home.

Cops say those moments were Beau's last. The surveillance video also shows a man running down a sidewalk immediately after the shooting.

philly.com 

Beau Zabel, the 23-year-old who recently left Minnesota to become a math teacher here, may have lost his life over an iPod, said Philadelphia homicide Capt. James Clark.

When the young man ended his late-night shift at Starbucks at Fourth and South Streets in South Philadelphia and headed home, he likely was listening to comedy through earphones that plugged into the iPod classic he kept in his front pocket, authorities said.

That, Clark said, may be why Zabel was targeted.

Zabel was fatally shot about 1:30 a.m. yesterday when he was ambushed as he walked to his apartment from the coffee shop. He was shot once in the neck in the 800 block of Ellsworth Street and fell to the sidewalk, police said.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

When homicide detectives arrived, the iPod he was always known to carry to listen to comedy was missing and the pocket where he normally carried it had been turned inside out, Clark said.

Detectives think that may be why he was targeted since Zabel still had his backpack with his wallet and money. Clark said the robbery had gone bad and it appears the gunman, and possibly one other person, were quick to flee after the shooting.

Authorities said they have reviewed surveillance tapes of nearby businesses where Zabel is seen on his way home, but there are no recordings of the shooting. Clark said Zabel may have been followed by two people, but detectives are still reviewing the tapes.

Anyone with information is asked to call homicide detectives at 215-686-3334, 3335, or 3336.

Zabel's mother, Lana Zamora, said by telephone yesterday from Austin, Minn. that she was heading to Philadelphia today.

"I thought I had to worry about him in the classroom, not on the streets," Zamora said.

Zamora said that she had driven her son here on May 2 and was assured by his new roommate that the neighborhood was safe. Now she is filled with disbelief and regret.

"Beau decided what he wanted to do," she said. "I raised my children to make their own decisions."

The second of three children, Zabel appeared to be a young man of great promise.

An Eagle Scout, he grew up in the small city of Austin near the Iowa border, where Hormel makes meat products and the city proudly proclaims itself "Spam Town USA." He graduated in 2007 from Augustana College, a liberal arts school in Rock Island, Ill., where he studied mathematics, Spanish, philosophy and computer science.

"He was a really good student," said Thomas Bengston, chairman of the Augustana math department, who described Zabel as good-natured and easy-going. "Things didn't get him down."

Zabel was attracted to teaching, but he did not have a degree in education. He was drawn to the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows program because he could teach in city public schools while getting his certification through Drexel University.

Zabel chose Philadelphia over a similar program in Chicago so he could be near an aunt who lives in Lancaster, Pa., Zamora said. He planned to have dinner on Friday with his cousin, she said.

On Ellsworth Street yesterday, neighborhood youths played basketball just a few feet from where the young man fell, oblivious to the stained sidewalk. Neighbors expressed shock that a violent crime had occurred on their quiet block, though some grumbled about the recent influx of immigrants as a signal that the neighborhood was changing.

Deena Burgase said she was wakened by the shot and immediately dismissed it as a problem with the utility lines - the electrical equipment had popped off recently. It was only after police arrived that Burgase understood that a young man had been killed across the narrow street from her rowhouse.

"I thought it was a transformer explosion," she said. "This is the first shooting in our neighborhood."

Zabel was the city's 139th homicide this year, compared with 181 by this time last year.

Zabel's mother got the word yesterday and was eager for any news. "We don't have a whole lot of murders up here," she said.

She was numbed by the news. She works as a victim's advocate for a nonprofit organization but did not fully comprehend victimization until yesterday.

"I've worked with a lot of victims," she said. "It's different - a way different feeling - when you're the victim. I thought I would be angry, but right now I don't care what happens to the people who did this.

"It won't bring my son back."

AUSTIN(MN)POST-BULLETIN

AUSTIN, MINNESOTA AND PHILADELPHIA, PA

Posing for a picture in March at his sister's wedding reception, Beau Zabel sported shades and a smile.

His mother, Lana Zamora, reminded her 23-year-old son they were inside and she wanted to see his eyes, not the sunglasses. Zabel kept the look.

"If his mom told him to do something, he did the opposite -- but he loved to have fun," Zamora said. "He loved to tease. He would rather tease than be serious."

That large picture of Zabel and his siblings sat on a shelf Thursday at Zamora's Austin home, among other pictures of her late son.

Zabel, an aspiring math teacher, died early Sunday in Philadelphia after being shot during an apparent robbery while walking home from doing a late shift at his summer job at a Starbucks coffee shop. Police haven't arrested a suspect.

Family members on Thursday remembered Zabel as a smart, outgoing and driven person who valued education and loved his family.

Just last month, Zabel, with his mother's help, moved from Austin to Philadelphia in preparation of June 30, when he was supposed to start six weeks of intensive student teaching.

Accepted into the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows, Zabel, a college graduate without a teacher's certificate, was guaranteed a high-school teaching job this fall at one of the city's high-needs public schools. The program also would pay for Zabel's graduate schooling to get certified as a teacher.

A 2003 Austin High School grad, Zabel spent the past year in Austin after graduating from Augustana College in Illinois. He worked in Albert Lea while applying for teaching fellowships.

Zabel also got accepted for a similar program in Chicago but chose Philadelphia partly because an aunt who lives nearby has a daughter with a summer internship there, Zamora said.

In his college sophomore year, Zabel had called his mom when he had to choose a major. Zabel told her he could take education classes or seek what he wanted to learn at that time, graduate and go to graduate school for teaching.

"He chose to do it the hard way," his mother said.

Zabel seemed to like academic challenges.

A National Honor Society member, Zabel in high school competed in Knowledge Bowl and Math League, of which he served as captain his senior year. Zabel loved math, Zamora said, and had a passion for philosophy, leading him into debate club and many "discussions" with his mother.

Zabel also sang, including in his college choir, and played the viola for the Austin High concert orchestra. He also got involved in drama at college.

As an Eagle Scout -- the highest rank in Boy Scouts -- Zabel worked a coupled of summers at Boy Scout camps and had planned, once he became a teacher, to do that again, his ex-stepfather Terry Zabel said, adding that he also did a summer study-abroad program in Ecuador.

This past week has been an "overwhelming" time, Zamora said, but she has appreciated everyone's concern and compassion.

What she'd appreciate most, though, are prayers for her late son, she said.