By Jason Nark
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — When Ryshaone Thomas was sent to prison in 2005, Linda Reis was outraged that one of the men who abducted, beat and strangled her daughter might be free someday.
Reis wanted Thomas, 32, to die in prison. On Sunday morning, she got her wish.
“It’s funny how God works,” said Reis, 54, of Mount Ephraim, N.J. “I really feel that things happen for many reasons.”
Thomas, of Camden, was serving a 43-year sentence for the murder of Reis’ daughter, Christine Eberle, on Nov. 12, 2001. On Sunday, Thomas was found unresponsive inside his cell at State Prison in Trenton. According to the state Department of Corrections, attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at 5 a.m.
Matt Schuman, a DOC spokesman, said his office could not release a cause and manner of death yesterday but did say Thomas had been alone in the cell and hadn’t appeared to be involved in a physical altercation. Reis said she had heard that Thomas may have had an asthma attack.
On the night of Nov. 12, 2001, Eberle, 27, of Washington Township, Gloucester County, an accountant at Delaware Investment Group in Philadelphia, was walking to her Ford Explorer at the Ferry Avenue PATCO station in Camden when Thomas and Marcus Toliver approached her. The men shoved Eberle into the rear of a car and drove her to a wooded area in the Fairview section of Camden. The men attempted to rape her, police said, but when she fought back, they beat and strangled her.
In 2005, Thomas and Toliver accepted plea agreements that spared them the death penalty, infuriating Eberle’s family and her fiance, Scott Warner.
“To these guys, prison was just a home away from home,” said Warner, 37, of Magnolia. “This is a big relief.”
Thomas was raised by his grandmother, who has died. Thomas’ father, according to an article in the Courier-Post, murdered Thomas’ mother when he was a child in New York
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