Man follows pregnant ex from The Cheesecake Factory, then kills her, PA officials say
.jpg "He continued shooting her as she tried running away at a gas station, Pennsylvania officials said.")
Before a pregnant woman went inside The Cheesecake Factory, authorities in Pennsylvania say she and her ex-boyfriend had a brief conversation outside the restaurant.
After they talked at 9:11 p.m. Friday, April 8, Tamara Cornelius went inside for dinner, according to a news release from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. She left the restaurant about an hour later at 10:15 p.m.
Cornelius, 31, then walked to the King of Prussia mall parking garage, got into her car and drove to the Exxon gas station about a mile away, officials said.
As she did so, police say 38-year-old Rafiq Thompson, of Philadelphia, was following her.
“While Cornelius was pumping gas, Thompson stepped out of his car, spoke to her and then shot her multiple times, continuing as she attempted to run away,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and Upper Merion Police Chief Thomas Nolan said in the news release.
The Upper Merion Township Police Department was called to the gas station in King of Prussia at 10:22 p.m.
“They arrived to find Tamara Cornelius lying in the gas station parking lot suffering from multiple gunshot wounds,” officials said. She was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at 11:09 p.m., about two hours after her conversation with Thompson outside of The Cheesecake Factory.
She was four months pregnant when she was killed, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Three days later, on April 11, the district attorney offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Thompson’s arrest in the death of his ex-girlfriend.
Thompson turned himself in to police the morning of April 13, officials said. As of that afternoon, he had been charged with “first-degree murder, person not to possess a firearm, possessing an instrument of crime and related charges.”
“This was a chilling murder of a young woman and her unborn child,” Steele said on April 11, adding that Thompson would also be charged in the murder of her unborn child.
Family of Cornelius, who was a mother of three children, said she and Thompson had dated for a few months last year, according to the Inquirer. She was expecting a baby with her new boyfriend, and they had recently bought a home together.
“Tamara was a beautiful person with a heart of gold,” aunt Lisa Cornelius told the newspaper. “We can’t understand why she’s gone. She had so much going for herself.”
King of Prussia is about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Man follows pregnant ex from The Cheesecake Factory, then kills her, PA officials say."