Antonio “Tony” Miller was the ultimate prankster. One time, he convinced his young niece that he was talking to her through the TV, assuming the identity of SpongeBob SquarePants.
Tony chatted with the stunned girl on the phone, describing exactly what she was wearing and watching. In reality, her father had fed Tony the information moments before.
Other family members received phone calls from Tony impersonating exterminators or child welfare advocates.
Tony was particularly close with his three sisters, JoAnn, Jasmine and Ashley. Jasmine and Ashley were younger than him, so he pinged them with water balloons and blockaded the bathroom or staircase, forcing them to spell their homework words to gain entry.
“Spell intelligent!” he demanded.
As he grew older, Tony increasingly shut himself inside his mother’s house in North Philadelphia to avoid the danger on the streets. He urged his mother to move: “It’s getting bad out there,” he warned.
But he couldn’t stay inside forever.
On the afternoon of Jan. 16, 2016, Tony was shot three times in the head on an empty lot on Edgley Street near 18th Street in North Philadelphia. He died that evening at Temple University Hospital.
Police said three men entered the lot, sandwiched between two homes, and were observed fleeing the scene after Tony was shot. They stole the $200 that Tammie Miller-Daughtry had given her son to pay his cell phone bill.
It has been four years since Tammie has heard anything from police about her son’s case. No arrests have been made.
“I just stopped calling because it was heartbreaking,” she said. “To this day, I don’t speak to police officers.”
Born on July 21, 1990, Tony was raised in North Philadelphia. He was the peacemaker who tried to dial down his sisters’ arguments about who could borrow whose clothes. He also was the responsible one who divided up the chores to make sure the house looked nice when Tammie came home from work.
In high school, Tony’s basketball coach recruited him for the debate team. Soon, he began stating his case at the dinner table, objecting to leftovers served for two days in a row.
Tony was incredibly protective of his sisters — driving them to their friends’ houses and insisting that they stay in school — yet he was fiercely competitive when it came to games.
He and Jasmine would play Spades, all night long, sectioning off a parking space in front of the house with a table and chairs. When he won, Tony slammed his card down and yelled, “Yeah, take that!” When he lost, he insisted that they “run that whole game back!”
“You have to earn it,” he told Ashley, who was ten years his junior, after demolishing her during a Mario Kart game. “And when you earn it you can rub it in as much as you want.”
Yet Tony was generous with his time and heart. Over six feet tall, he folded his long legs to drink “tea” while Ashley served him from her Fisher-Price kitchen set.
“How can I eat without a fork?” he joked, sending her scurrying for utensils. “I don’t get any water?”
In the adult kitchen, Tony enjoyed experimenting with new recipes after taking culinary classes at Benjamin Franklin High School.
His late grandmother, Brenda Arter, called him “my gentle giant.”
Brenda, who was blind, lived across the street from the family, and Tony would walk her to the bus stop and then ride his bike to meet her at the drop-off. He volunteered for clothing drives and food distribution at the Society for Helping Church, which serves the deaf and the hard of hearing on Park and Susquehanna Avenues.
Tony relished spending time with children and the elderly. He ran errands for a neighbor who had a hip replacement or would entertain a five-year-old on the block because he knew there was nobody to watch her.
Tony was a Baptist on both sides and internalized his grandmother’s favorite Bible verse: “Walk by faith, not be sight.” He believed that tomorrow was never guaranteed, and always said “I love you” before leaving for the day, Tammie remembered.
He was a deep thinker and compassionate. After one of his friends stole his iPad, Tony forgave him. He reasoned that the friend must have needed the device more, Tammie said.
After graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School, Tony briefly studied business at the Community College of Philadelphia. He envisioned starting a business that would appeal to his community, such as an ice cream parlor or water ice stand.
But he was more passionate about music, with diverse taste ranging from Cassidy to The Fray. As “Tone Mac,” he rapped about communal pain, and included the name of Jasmine’s dad, who died when she was 11 years old, in his lyrics.
Tony worked in home construction with his father, Lorenzo Dickson. He also held jobs in private security and ran concessions and rides at Great Adventure.
After Jasmine enrolled in Millersville University, she urged her brother to make a fresh start in Lancaster, hoping that he would be inspired by others who came from similar backgrounds. Tony was killed a couple weeks before he was planning to move out there, she said.
When Jasmine graduated from college, she wrote the names of her deceased father and brother under a halo with a quote from Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise.”
Tony and his grandmother are buried at Mount Peace Cemetery in North Philadelphia.
“For the short time that he had, I am blessed,” Tammie said. “You get through the day, and I take it step by step and minute by minute and keep on moving.”
But she will no longer participate in neighborhood block parties. She is convinced that someone out there knows something about her son’s murder but isn’t speaking up.
“I’m not moving because I want you to see my face every day,” she said. “I want you to see what you caused my family.”
Tony is still the top scorer on his family’s Wheel of Fortune video game. They never try to beat him.
A reward of up to $20,000 if available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Tony’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
Resources are available for people and communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Click here for more information.
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