A Metropolitan Police Department officer accused of fatally shooting a woman with whom he was scheduled to have a court-ordered paternity test and leaving her infant daughter to die inside a sweltering car was held without bond Monday in Prince George’s County District Court.
Even before hearing statements from the victim’s distraught family members, Judge John P. Morrissey ordered Richmond Diallo Binns Phillips of Hillcrest Heights held without bond because he believed Phillips was a further threat to the community.
County police arrested Officer Phillips on Friday and charged him with one count of first-degree murder in connection with the death of Wynetta Wright, 20. He was also charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of manslaughter in the death of 1-year-old Jaylin Wright, who family members said was his daughter.
“Can you make sure that they keep an eye on him [in jail], so we can have our justice?” one woman asked the judge.
Miss Wright’s decomposing body was found June 2 in a Temple Hills park. She had apparent gunshot wounds, according to charging documents.
Her car, a Saturn Vue, was found about a quarter of a mile away parked on Southern Avenue. Just one day shy of her first birthday, Jaylin was found dead in her car seat. Police think severe heat inside the vehicle killed the toddler, according to charging documents.
Miss Wright and Officer Phillips were due in court May 31 for a paternity hearing at which Officer Phillips would have been ordered to provide a DNA sample to determine whether he was Jaylin’s father, said Assistant State’s Attorney E. Wesley Adams.
Family members reported Miss Wright missing that same day, after she had gone the night before to meet Officer Phillips to discuss the upcoming hearing, then never returned.
According to charging documents, the two met at Oxon Run Stream Valley Park in Temple Hills at about 11 p.m., after Officer Phillips left his work as a Metropolitan Police Officer in the District. A surveillance camera at the park captured video of people fitting their descriptions talking on a picnic bench for nearly seven hours. Just after 6 a.m., a Ford Expedition and Miss Wright’s Saturn Vue were captured on video leaving the park, about five minutes apart.
Miss Wright’s body was found in a wooded area about 100 yards away from the park bench.
Members of the Wright family angrily condemned Officer Phillips at the hearing.
“He took an oath to serve and protect,” said Miss Wright’s mother, Wyvette Wright, when Officer Phillips appeared on a closed-circuit TV screen inside the courtroom.
Another woman could do little more than to call him a “monster” before her voice cracked as she began to cry.
“This has been absolutely devastating to the community and to the family,” said County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks. “They are absolutely beside themselves.”
Officer Phillips, an eight-year veteran of the MPD who most recently worked in the 1st District, has had his police powers revoked, police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said.
No attorney is listed in court documents as representing Officer Phillips. A person who answered calls at a home listed in his name hung up the phone before talking to a reporter.
When investigators first interviewed Officer Phillips on June 2, he denied having seen Miss Wright in more than one year, according to charging documents. Only after he was shown the surveillance video from the park did he admit to meeting her and talking with her in the park until 6 a.m.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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