About an hour into a poker game, William "Big Will" Reed got hungry and decided to run out for some seafood, one of his card buddies said Monday night.

"We lived around the corner and we all figured he would be back in a couple minutes" Mark Dempsey said. When a neighborhood kid called Reed's apartment around midnight Sunday and said Reed had been shot, Dempsey said he refused to believe it.

"They made a mistake" was all Dempsey could think as he left Reed's living room on Edgmont Avenue and raced to the shooting scene at Ninth and Kerlin streets with other members of the poker group.

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Reed, 27, was pronounced dead in the parking lot of J & S Seafood at 12:40 a.m. Sunday. He died of multiple gunshot wounds to the trunk, according to Delaware County Medical Examiner Dr. Fredric N. Hellman.

Hellman ruled the death a homicide, the second in the city to date this year.

Police said an investigation was continuing, led by Detective Lamont Graves. Anyone with information is asked to call (610) 447-7908.

Dempsey lives in the same apartment building where Reed resided with his girlfriend and their two young children. "He was one of the gentlest, kindest people I know," Dempsey said of his friend. They met about three years ago. Reed was scheduled Monday to start a new job as manager at Walmart, according to Dempsey.

"Everything was just starting to come together for him," he said.

Dempsey said he could only wish he knew what happened to Reed. "We all ran out after a neighborhood kid called," he said. "He was just going down to order. We all thought he would be right back to play," Dempsey said.

Not only was Reed ahead in the card game, "he was cleaning up," according to Dempsey.

Source: Rose Quinn, The Daily Times