Investigators are also trying to determine if the shooting of another unidentified man, who was found with a leg wound on Rainer Road two blocks away in the Toby Farms section and expected to recover, are connected.

Samuel A. Johnson Jr., 23, of the 1300 block of Harshaw Road, was "alive and talking" to police shortly after he was discovered in an alley in the 1400 block of Rainer Road, about 12:21 a.m., Chester Township Police Capt. Brent McNair said.

Johnson was transported to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where he died at 1:29 a.m.

"He spoke. He wouldn’t tell us who shot him," McNair said.

With an autopsy still pending by the Delaware County Medical Examiner’s office, there is no official ruling on the cause and manner of Johnson’s death. Still, police are pursuing the investigation as a homicide, which would be the county’s third of the new year.

"We don’t know where this happened, just that he ended up in our town," McNair said. "We are trying to locate the crime scene."

According to McNair, reports of "shots fired" in the 1200 block of Rainer Road were made to 911. A Brookhaven man said he heard a series of shots coming from the Toby Farms direction about 10:45 p.m. and again about an hour later.

A police source said a third series of shots was reported closer to midnight.

Chester Township patrolmen were already in the area investigating the gunfire reports when a man was found in the rear of the 1200 block of Rainer Road, on the edge of Upland Park. Delaware County Park Police were called in to investigate.

He’s indicated to police that the shooting was a result of an attempted robbery, the source said.

Within about a half-hour, a passerby found Johnson, about two blocks from where the first shooting victim was discovered. It appeared Johnson had been shot in the hip.

Investigators are not sure if the men knew each other.

Multiple shell casings were recovered at nearby Rainer and Worrilow roads. Without a Medical Examiner’s report, police could not be certain if they are connected to the Johnson case.

An apologetic Delaware County Medical Examiner Dr. Fredric N. Hellman said he was "so busy" with another case, the delayed death of a Ridley Park man who was shot while working at Firestone Tire and Service Center in Bensalem, that he could not make even a cursory examination of Johnson.

McNair said that township police had no previous contact with Johnson.

A spokesman for the Delaware County District Attorney’s office, which oversees the county detective division, said the case remained under investigation.