Marcus Alexander’s friends always knew they had a place to crash if they were hungry, arguing with their parents, or needed a respite from the streets.
Growing up in Southwest Philadelphia, Marcus would invite at least 10 kids to dinner and the occasional stray dog, his mother, Theresa Guyton, remembered. He persuaded a friend to enter a rehabilitation program for addiction, and accompanied his cousin to her prom with only one day’s notice.
“He seen the good in everybody until they showed him the bad,” Theresa said. “We always fed the neighborhood like we were rich.”
“Everybody wanted to be a part of our dysfunctional family,” she continued, laughing.
The oldest of 11 (five on his mom’s side, six on his dad’s), Marcus managed the house and dressed and fed four of his younger siblings while he was still in elementary school. Theresa, who had Marcus when she was 16, suffered from severe asthma and instructed her eldest from her hospital bed. Marcus’ father was incarcerated for the first 11 years of his son’s life, and the two had a fractured relationship.
The first time Marcus was shot was in 2016. He was waiting to borrow his friend’s SEPTA pass in West Philadelphia when a man fired indiscriminately into a crowd. Marcus survived after doctors inserted a chest tube.
The second time was in 2018, when he was in a car with his friend in Southwest Philadelphia. A man fired 17 bullets at the vehicle and Marcus’ 23-year-old friend died. Marcus sustained minor injuries.
The third time was on the night of Jan. 31, 2020, when Marcus was gunned down on the 3100 block of G Street in the Kensington section of the city. A police investigation is ongoing, but Marcus’ family believes that his killing was motivated by jealousy or revenge. Two months prior, Marcus watched another friend get murdered in the same neighborhood.
“They’re letting us kill each other off,” lamented Theresa, who also lost her 14-year-old stepson to gun violence in December. “Half of these neighborhoods there is a police station right there and people are still dying.”
Marcus attended John Bartram High School and played football for the Kingsessing Roadrunners, a community league. He graduated from the Glen Mills Schools, a reform school, after getting caught up in a violent flash mob incident in 2010 that involved thousands of teenagers in Center City. Marcus was in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, his mother said.
He studied liberal arts for less than a year at Harcum College — his family jokes that his main purpose was to study girls — before traveling around the country visiting friends.
Marcus had brief job stints at The Cheesecake Factory and at a local dollar store, but his dream was to start a rap label with his family, managing the business side. Marcus’ siblings hope to move forward with the label and also start a clothing line, “Shmoney,” in tribute to their brother’s nickname.
Marcus was “optimistic about his future,” said his aunt, Quanda Guyton, noting that her nephew never sat still. “It’s like a Catch-22. He felt that the odds were stacked against him, but he never stopped fighting. He was going to make it one way or the other.”
For Marcus, family was paramount. He never missed a gathering, where he would dance wildly and bust on his relatives with deadpan humor. “You the bid,” he exclaimed, half-mocking them.
Yet no one questioned his loyalty. Marcus tried to steer his nieces, nephews and cousins on the right path, and defended his aunt’s honor when he felt that her boyfriend was disrespecting her.
A tattoo on his forearm read: “Family comes first.” Another one resembled a brick wall with his family members’ names tucked inside.
“His dream was for all of us to get out of here and live together,” said Theresa, who lived with Marcus at her Lawncrest home before he died.
Quanda talked to Marcus nearly every day. She tried to motivate him to explore job opportunities, explaining that he was smart, determined and a “people person.”
Shortly after Thanksgiving in 2019, she sat with Marcus in his bedroom while he showed her a half-dozen recent obituaries of his friends.
“He was numb to it — like something to be expected,” Quanda remembered.
“He wanted something to have that would give him a legacy.”
Resources are available for people and communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Click here for more information.
A reward of up to $20,000 is available to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for Marcus’ murder. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
