An attorney for Beanie Sigel responded Wednesday to mounting media speculation suggesting the murder of the rapper's stepfather, Samuel Derry, is related to Sigel's acquittal last week on attempted-murder charges.

"There's no indication whatsoever that the two are connected," Fortunato Perri Jr. told The Associated Press. "I can't imagine any circumstance [whereby] the recent trial has anything to do with this murder." Perri was Sigel's defense counsel for the trial.

Derry's remains were discovered Tuesday morning in Philadelphia's Mount Airy neighborhood; his body was dumped in an alley, where it was set ablaze and left to burn (see "Beanie Sigel's Stepfather Murdered"). According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the results of an autopsy released Wednesday confirmed multiple gunshot wounds as the cause of Derry's death.

The pre-dawn abduction on Wednesday of one of Derry's associates raised more questions.

According to the AP, Wallace Moody — who befriended Sigel's stepfather a few years back while both were serving prison time — was kidnapped by two armed men wearing hooded sweatshirts. The wire service reports that two vehicles pulled up in front of Moody's North Philadelphia home; he was forced into one of them before both cars sped off around 6 a.m.

Police spent most of Wednesday searching for Moody, who turned up late that night at Philadelphia's Albert Einstein Medical Center. The Inquirer reports that Moody walked into the hospital just after 10 p.m. and was treated for facial bruising. Investigators haven't established a link between the two crimes, though they aren't ruling one out. Detectives interviewed Moody late Wednesday night.

"Certainly, it's a concern. We're looking at it," Captain Mark Everitt of the Northwest Detective Division told the Inquirer of a possible tie between Derry's murder and Moody's abduction. "We have no information to suggest that the two are connected in any way."