Phila. FBI Agent Honored For Work That Brought Ruthless Drug Kingpin To Justice
By Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A local FBI agent has been given a national award for his tireless work in connection with the recent Kaboni Savage serial murder case in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia FBI special agent Kevin Lewis, an agent since 1996, had been consumed by the drug gang case.
"Kaboni Savage has been a part of my career for about 14 years," he noted today.
Lewis' boss, special-agent-in-charge Edward Hanko, is delighted with the work that Lewis did in the case.
"Finally, someone has been brought to justice for the years and years of terror that he and his crew inflicted on the city of Philadelphia," Hanko says.
A federal court jury found that Savage had gunned down one man and ordered the killing of five others, and, in a single stunning act of violence in 2004, Savage ordered the firebombing of the home of a witness against him.
The blaze killed four children and two women, including the witness' mother and baby son.
Lewis (center of photo) says he was gratified that Savage was finally held accountable, providing some level of closure for the victims.
"The day he got his death sentence, he turned to look into the audience, and there was nobody there for him. There were people for the victims, but nobody in the audience for him," Lewis recalls.
The jury convicted Savage of 12 murders, the most in modern Philadelphia history, and then sentenced him to death. It was the first in this federal district since the death penalty was reinstated in 1988.