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Meet Philly Homicide Host Chris McMullin and Learn the Heartwarming Reason He Went into Police Work
Chris McMullin, host of a new Oxygen True Crime show about murder cases in Philadelphia, was inspired to go into law enforcement after a sweet encounter with police as a child.
A police lieutenant with decades of experience solving cases is lending his expertise to an all-new Oxygen True Crime show set in the city he was born in and once patrolled.
Chris McMullin, a lieutenant with the Bucks County Sheriff’s Office in Pennsylvania, will host Philly Homicide, a 10-episode docuseries that premieres Saturday, October 26 at 9 p.m. and highlights a different murder case each week.
McMullin spent several years as a patrol officer with the police department in Philadelphia, where he was born and raised, before becoming a detective with Bensalem Police Department, where he investigated homicides, sex crimes, assaults, and robberies.
His professional insight will be weaved into the true crime stories told on Philly Homicide, along with that of former and current Philly area detectives.
Sweet reason Philly Homicide host Chris McMullin went into law enforcement
Growing up in Philadelphia, McMullin's grandmother had a home nearby, in North Wildwood, very close to that Jersey Shore city's police station.
"From the time I was three, four years I would sit on the patio, watch cars go in and out and wave to the cops and they were always friendly,” McMullin told Oxygen.com.
"It goes back to 1977 when I was kid down in Jersey and I fell off my bike and two cops helped me off the ground," he added.
That exchange with North Wildwood police officers sparked McMullin's desire to one day work in law enforcement.
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"Every summer, I would go back there and as I got a little older, they'd wave to me and sometimes I got to know a few of them," McMullin said. "Fast-forward, when I was about 19, I had applied to be a seasonal police officer because in the summer months, they would hire seasonal cops to up the manpower because with the tourist population, the town will get busy."
McMullin started out as a dispatcher and then attended the police academy and worked as a seasonal patrol cop in the summer of 1990. By that fall, he was hired by the Philadelphia Police Department.
What it's like working as a cop in Philadelphia
“I love the Philadelphia area, obviously, it’s my home,” McMullin said. “It is unique. There's a lot of different areas [that] have different cultures.”
The different neighborhoods of Philadelphia pose different challenges for detectives, McMullin said. He explained that while working for the Bensalem Police Department, his partner, who will be featured on a few episodes of Philly Homicide, was bilingual and would help McMullin out when he was working on a case where the people involved did not speak English.
“You have to be diverse in policing, we live in a diverse society,” McMullin added.
Among the cases that stand out for McMullin during his long career, 30 years of which were spent at the Bensalem Police Department, is one involving Christian Rojas, who was tortured and beaten to death in his Bensalem apartment in the summer of 2004.
McMullin was one of the lead investigators on that case, which he said "stuck with me," and will be featured on an upcoming episode of Philly Homicide.
Chris McMullin's nonprofit helps solve cold cases
In additional to his police work, McMullin also co-founded the nonprofit, Cold Case Initiative, which aims to put faces to unidentified human remains.
“The one thing that was always a problem in working on these cold cases was having the money in the budget to bring them up to current standards, with forensic testing and things like that,” McMullin said about why he started the nonprofit. “We raised money to offset the cost of that type of testing to help agents.”
In 2023, the group solved its first case after a John Doe found dead in the Delaware River in 2003 was identified as Edward Anthony Nece. The nonprofit is currently working to identify three other sets of remains found in different parts of the country, by funding genetic genealogy efforts.
McMullin also wrote a book about his career and cases he’s worked, titled 3 Decades Cold, which was released in May of 2024.
The premiere episode of Philly Homicide, “End of Watch,” focuses on the fatal shooting of Chester Police Corporal Michael Beverly.
“I’ve been, sadly, to a lot of cop funerals in my 30-plus years because... we don’t have to know one another... Somebody goes down in the line of duty, the cops come from all over,” McMullin told Oxygen.com. “The average police funeral has thousands of officers in attendance.”
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McMullin says he signed on to host Philly Homicide to pay tribute to the victims featured on the series and their families.
“I just wanted to show how hard law enforcement works to solve these cases and get justice,” McMullin told Oxygen.com. “I think that’ll be very, very clear when somebody watches the episodes and sees the dedication and listens to these detectives talk — how personal it does become for them at times and how hard they dig in to try and find the truth.”
Philly Homicide premieres Saturday, October 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen.
