Philly man who murdered Temple grad on Main Line gets life sentence. Judge calls him ‘evil,’ ‘a thug.’

A Philadelphia man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for fatally shooting a 29-year-old Temple University graduate in Haverford Township in 2017 in a shocking random attack.

Derrick Rollins, 25, showed little emotion as Delaware County Court Judge John P. Capuzzi Sr. imposed the sentence, without the possibility of parole, and tacked on 16 to 32 years for attempted murder, which will run concurrently and ensure Rollins spends the rest of his life in prison.

“You are an evil, despicable individual,” he said. “You are a liar, a manipulator, a thug, a scumbag. You don’t deserve to see the outside ever again in your life.” Capuzzi said Rollins was an individual “without a soul.”

Rollins shook his head, and a subtle smirk spread across his face.

“You can laugh all you want,” Capuzzi said. “But you will never see the light of day. I wish the commonwealth would have brought it as a capital murder case, and I could have sentenced you to death.”

The murder of 29-year-old John Le, a graduate of Lower Merion High School who lived with his mother in Narberth, stunned the Main Line communities: A crime replete with violence, but devoid of motive.

It came right after a shooting incident involving Rollins in Overbrook Park.

According to trial testimony:

Two men driving along 77th Street around dinner time on July 29, 2017, observed Rollins. Thinking he was casing a house on the block, they stopped to confront him.

Rollins pulled out a gun and fired 17 shots, pockmarking the car but missing the occupants.

Minutes later, Rollins drove to the Main Line and encountered Le, who was heading to a friend’s apartment on the 2300 block of Haverford Road after playing tennis. After a still-unexplained confrontation, Rollins fired several shots, striking Le twice.

Until those confrontations, Rollins had never encountered Le nor the two men who saw him on 77th.

Rollins, who had a lengthy criminal record prior to the shootings, eluded police for several weeks. Authorities tracked Rollins to an apartment complex in Decatur, Ga., outside Atlanta, after a weeks-long manhunt.

Last month, during a four-day trial in Media, Kevin M. O’Neill, Rollins’ attorney, portrayed his client as being of unsound mind on the day of the crime. A binge of marijuana and prescription pills, O’Neill claimed, rendered Rollins incapable of forming the intent required to be found guilty of first-degree murder.

O’Neill admitted that Rollins shot and killed Le, hoping it would persuade jurors to convict his client on a lesser murder charge and spare him life imprisonment.

But after deliberating for four hours, jurors convicted Rollins of first-degree murder and related counts.

Le’s mother, Maria Nguyen, attended nearly all of the proceedings, saying she wanted to “be with John,” the youngest of her four adult children.

Le’s two brothers and his mother attended the sentencing hearing — as did Rollins’ fiancee, Tatiana Thompson, who brought Rollins’ 6-year-old son.

Le’s two brothers addressed the judge. Le’s mother dabbed her eyes with a tissue during the testimony of the oldest son, Augustin.

“My family were refuges from Vietnam,” he said. “John was proof that we made it.”

Le’s mother also addressed the court. “I miss him everyday,” she said. “I have a hole in my heart.”

She told the judge that she is Catholic and because of her faith chose to forgive Rollins.

Rollins’ son, wearing a red shirt with a Snoopy face on front that matched Rollins’ red jumpsuit, started crying during the testimony.

As Rollins left the courtroom, he turned toward his family.

“Yo,” he yelled to his son, “stop crying.”