Alex Jeremy Ledino loved the adrenaline rush of riding dirt bikes through the city. He would do stunts like riding on top of parked cars, and he didn’t limit his riding just to bikes. He also had a Hoveround motorized wheelchair that he’d use to zip around the neighborhood.
“He liked to do stuff nobody else would do,” his mother Angie Ledino said. “Once he found something he liked, he was all for it.”
Alex had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Angie explained, and he was always looking for a challenge. In November 2005, when Alex was about to turn 14, he and some other kids from his block had an impromptu Wu Tang dance competition.
Alex accidentally hit another boy with his elbow while they were dancing. He apologized, but the boy’s mother still went to Alex’s house later and fatally shot his 41-year-old stepfather, Donald Clyburn, over the incident. The woman was convicted in connection to the homicide.
His stepfather’s funeral was the day after Alex’s birthday.
“He felt a lot of guilt and didn’t really like to celebrate his birthday anymore after that,” Angie said.
Less than eight years later, on Feb. 3, 2013, Alex himself was shot and killed in Kensington. He was 20 years old. No arrests have been made, but Angie said that the people believed to be connected to his murder, his friends, are now deceased themselves.
“Alex was loved by many. By many,” Angie said.
Alex was born Nov. 22, 1992 in Philadelphia to his mother and Nathaniel Snipe. He had a total of nine siblings and two daughters, Eniyah, 9 and Layla, 8.
Angie describes her son as “a comical person. He could make the darkest day bright. He was so silly and outgoing and he could make everyone laugh.”
When Alex was young, he went to live with his grandmother in North Carolina, and Angie didn’t see him for several years. He came back up to Philadelphia when he was 8, and Angie was afraid he wouldn’t remember her.
“He dove right into my arms,” she said. “He knew exactly who I was.”
Alex graduated from Glen Mills School in 2011. Shortly before his death, he had started a relationship with a woman who was a positive influence on him. He started making better choices and pulling back from the life he had been leading.
Alex is laid to rest at Greenmount Cemetery. An image of a bike is etched into his headstone.
