Byron Dessiso, 36, of Hunting Park, a former high school football player and jujitsu enthusiast who would burst into tears at the sight of his young daughter bawling with a boo-boo, died July 11, 2022 — the same day he was about to start a new job — after being shot in Hunting Park, less than a block from his home.
A tenacious defensive end for the Hunting Park Seminoles and the Mifflin County Tomahawks, Byron appreciated the brotherhood and hyped up his teammates before games with his motivational speeches over a can of Olde English 800, remembered his best friend, Brian Gibson, a middle linebacker.
After Byron’s death, both teams held fundraisers for his three-year-old daughter, Kai Marie Dessiso; the Tomahawks will wear Byron’s number on their helmets this season.
Apart from football, Byron was obsessed with his white Ford Expedition (“Snow White”) and his purple iridescent motorcycle (“Purple Rain”). He cruised down Delaware Avenue to clear his head, blasting his favorite Prince ballad and revving his Yamaha engine when he returned home, recalled his mother, Lisa Dessiso.
“Byron’s motorcycle was his therapy,” she said. “Whatever he was going through, the ride made it better.”
After renting apartments in Wyncote and Germantown, Byron moved back in with his mom in January 2021. Lisa made his breakfast, lunch and dinner — unless he challenged her to a burrito cook-off (which he inevitably lost). The pair played Uno, dominoes and cards. Byron was a “very good cheater,” Lisa recalled, drawing from a second deck that he hid under the table.
Fiercely protective, he scared away his mom’s potential suitors — “this is not the woman you want to date.” She ended up meeting them around the block.
A certified auto mechanic, Byron stockpiled tools and dreamed of opening up his own shop where he would treat customers fairly, especially seniors, and not drain their pocketbooks, Lisa said.
Until then, Byron struggled to maintain stable employment, after serving more than two years in prison for non-violent crimes. Two years ago, he was stabbed by a neighbor and endured a six-hour surgery to repair his stomach.
“He’d always find a way out of nowhere,” Brian said, noting that Byron was set to begin a new warehouse job on July 11, the morning he was killed.
That day, Lisa had assembled deli meat, bread, chips and Gatorade to make Byron’s first lunch on the job.
Shortly after 1 a.m., Byron phoned his mom to tell her he was at the corner of North 9th Street and West Erie Avenue and on his way home. Although her son was 36 years old, Lisa still insisted that he check in with her every time he went out and tuck $5 inside his sneaker in case of an emergency.
Byron seemed unsettled that morning, Lisa remembered. “Mom, we have to get out of here,” he told her, before thanking her for her love and support.
“You are my heartbeat,” she replied.
Minutes later, Lisa heard three gunshots. By the time she rounded the corner, paramedics were covering her only child’s body.
She threw out all the lunch meat. “The mighty oak has fallen,” she would write later in a poem dedicated to her son, “but did you hear a sound?”
One month before his death, Byron sat on Lisa’s bed and sobbed over a bad dream. He saw his lifeless body lying on the pavement.
“I’m not going to make it to 37,” he said, flatly.
Video footage of the crime scene shows a man, accompanied by a woman, approaching Byron before he was killed. The man shot him in the back and then twice in the head, Lisa said. Police have made no arrests.
One month after Byron’s murder, a letter arrived from the City of Philadelphia. Byron had been hired as a sanitation worker. He had applied for the job, hoping to bring some stability to his life and better provide for his daughter. Brian also had a stepdaughter, Kira Taylor, now 11.
Known as Byron Da Barbarian on the field and B-Eazy off it, Byron was born in Hunting Park on October 7, 1985.
As a child, he was glued to National Geographic magazines, transporting him to far-flung places with exotic animals.
Despite suffering from asthma, he rescued a tiger-striped pitbull mix darting between traffic on Roosevelt Boulevard. He named her Remy and she perched on her hind legs to dance with him to R&B.
Byron grew to 6 feet, 6 inches, forcing his mother, whom he called “shorty,” to stand on a higher step when she was reprimanding him. His father, Byron Pinckney, enrolled him in martial arts training.
Byron graduated from Penn Charter Academy and briefly attended Harcum College to study human resources, but switched to technical school to learn the inner workings of cars. Byron was always willing to help his friends repair their vehicles or pitch in with home maintenance; he gave his old sneakers to neighborhood drug addicts, his mother said.
A consummate jokester, Byron wore graphic t-shirts featuring The Avengers or the Tasmanian Devil. Fatherhood grounded him. He grew his beard out so that he could tickle his daughter with it, but he also panicked whenever Kai fell in the playground, averting his eyes from a bloody knee.
“I’m ok, daddy,” the toddler consoled him. “Sheesh.”
He also kept a watchful eye on his mother. One day, after she tripped down the steps inside their house, Byron ran from another room, jumped over her and cushioned her fall six steps from the bottom. Then he gave her a lecture about wearing the wrong socks.
Five days after Byron’s death, Lisa fell down the steps again. She cried out for her son, grabbed a railing and stopped on the same step, she said.
A committeeperson for 18 years and former block captain on Darien Street, Lisa was unofficially known as the “mayor” of Hunting Park, organizing food drives and street sweepings. But the neighborhood has failed her, she said, and now she wants out.
“That was a journey I was supposed to take with my son,” she explained. “Now, that’s a journey I have to take on my own.”
Byron is buried in Greenmount Cemetery. His funeral procession was set to the soundtrack of “Purple Rain.”
At her son’s viewing, Lisa noticed his signature smirk and a body finally at peace.
“Did you put that smile on my son’s face?” she asked the undertaker.
“He came to me that way,” the man replied, “and I left it.”
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 Byron Dessiso’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS. Information can also be submitted to the Philadelphia Police Department online or by calling 215-686-TIPS.
Resources are available for people and communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Click here for more information.
