If a friend needed something and Michael Strong Jr. could provide it, he’d do so happily.
When he was in high school, Michael’s friends would converge on their home in North Philadelphia after his mother, Sylvia Murray, left for work, and Michael would make breakfast for everyone using food from Sylvia’s last grocery haul.
Sometimes Sylvia would notice that non-food items were missing from their house, like Michael’s television and an electric heater.
“I said, ‘Michael, where’s your TV?’” Sylvia said. “He said, ‘Well, mom, I really didn’t watch it, so I gave it to my friend because he doesn’t have a TV in his house.”
He gave their electric heater to a friend whose gas had been turned off.
“He was that type of person,” Sylvia said. “Michael was a very caring, loving, giving person.”
His acts of generosity extended beyond his circle of friends. The first snowfall of 2017 happened during the first week of the year, and on Jan. 7, Michael shoveled the sidewalks of several sick and elderly neighbors and refused to take the money they tried to pay him.
Michael came in from shoveling and sat on Sylvia’s lap.
“He said, ‘I love you, mom’ and I said, ‘I love you too, baby,’” Sylvia said.
They talked about having fish for dinner and watching a movie, and so Sylvia headed to the kitchen. Michael went upstairs, then came back down and went outside. Sylvia noticed he wasn’t wearing a coat, and she didn’t hear him say anything as he left.
About five minutes passed, and Sylvia heard gunshots. She and some neighbors gathered outside, and she saw that the victim was Michael. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Temple University Hospital. He was 21 years old.
Sylvia doesn’t know why Michael left the house, but he had been spotted speaking to someone moments before. That person has not been identified. The Philadelphia Police Department have not made any arrests in Michael’s homicide.
“My regret is that I wish I would have gotten on the ground with my son. I wish I had been in the car to the hospital with my son,” Sylvia said. “I just could not believe that this happened to him.”
Michael was born Jan. 16, 1995 in Philadelphia to Sylvia and his father, Michael Strong. He had two older brothers.
He graduated from Simon Gratz Mastery Charter School in 2013 and then started working at his father’s auto detailing shop. His next goal was to attend Orleans Tech to study contracting work, then save up enough to eventually open his own auto detailing business.
After his death, Michael’s high school hung a banner memorializing Michael and remembering his character.
“I knew he was a good person and a loving person, but you always see the good in your child,” Sylvia said. “To hear other people say it, and to hear his peers say it, and to hear his teachers say that it shouldn’t happen to him, it makes me proud. This shouldn’t have happened to him. He tried to help everybody.”
Michael is laid to rest at Ivy Hill Cemetery.
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 Michael’s murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
Date: 2017-01-07
Location: 3700 N. 13th St, Philadelphia, PA
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