The state is suddenly prosecuting a new co-defendant in connection with the 2014 murder of 20-year-old Enrico Smalley Jr.

Alvie Vereen (left) and Shaheed Brown

South Woods State Prison inmate Alvie Vereen, 27, has been charged with accomplice liability murder and weapons offenses under a superseding indictment that also charged co-defendant Shaheed Brown as an accomplice in the four-year-old Trenton homicide case.

Prosecutors since summer 2014 have accused Brown of being the triggerman and sole party responsible for Smalley’s violent death, and Brown has subsequently weathered three murder trials that each ended with a hung jury.

Brown, 34, of Trenton, used a third-party shooter defense that implicated Vereen in the murder, but the state seemingly rejected that argument until this month, when the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office presented its case to a grand jury that resulted in the explosive superseding indictment charging both men with first-degree accomplice liability murder. 

“It is a horrific abuse of the justice system, and it is a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars,” Edward Harrington Heyburn, Brown’s defense attorney, said Tuesday in an interview about the superseding indictment. “There is no evidence Mr. Brown aided Alvie in any way.”

The new indictment accuses Brown and Vereen of shooting and killing Smalley on July 12, 2014. Each co-defendant operated “by his own conduct or as an accomplice of another,” according to the allegations in the charging documents.

Enrico Smalley Jr.

Following the 1:20 a.m. shooting, Trenton Police were dispatched to the corner of Poplar Street and North Clinton Avenue and found Smalley lying on the sidewalk in front of La Guira Bar suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head. Smalley was rushed to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Brown and Vereen were friends, and surveillance footage captures both co-defendants at the murder scene when Smalley got gunned down. About a month after the homicide, authorities found Brown and Vereen hanging out in Newark. Brown was arrested on murder charges, but Vereen back then was not charged in the case. The Trentonian previously reported that Brown and Vereen were persons of interest in a 2014 Newark carjacking case.

As the murder case played out, Brown sat in the Mercer County Correction Center on $1 million cash bail from Aug. 18, 2014, till this week, when a Superior Court judge ordered Brown to be released on electronic monitoring, prosecutors confirmed.

Meanwhile, Vereen is incarcerated in state prison for being in unlawful possession of a handgun in Newark on Aug. 17, 2014, and for committing an assault by auto in Trenton on June 11, 2016, according to public records. He pleaded guilty in both of those cases and is scheduled to be released from state prison on Sept. 15, 2020.

If convicted of first-degree accomplice liability murder, Brown and Vereen would face 30 years to life in prison.

Brown, who has prior convictions for aggravated assault and aggravated arson, continues to maintain his presumption of innocence in the murder case. Three trial juries over the last three years each could not reach a unanimous consensus on whether Brown was guilty or not guilty of murder and weapons offenses.

Brown’s defense attorney filed a motion last month seeking to get the original indictment dismissed, but the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office outmaneuvered him by pursuing the superseding indictment that keeps the case against Brown alive and well while finally targeting Vereen for his alleged role in the slaying of Smalley.

Heyburn said his client was released Monday evening from the Mercer County Correction Center. Brown has an electronic monitor on his ankle but is free to travel within a 100-mile radius of Trenton without any curfew limitations, according to Heyburn, who said his client is expected to appear at any future mandatory court proceedings.

Free on pretrial release after being jailed for 52 months, Brown is staying with his ex-girlfriend and his child in Trenton, according to Heyburn, who said Trenton Police confronted Brown during his Monday evening homecoming.

A friend drove Brown from jail to his new digs in Trenton. When Brown finally returned home Monday evening, “They were waiting there, stopped him, told him to get out of the car,” Heyburn said of the police. “They searched him, searched his bag. They knew exactly who he was. It is continued harassment that goes from the prosecutor’s office to the Trenton Police Department.”

Heyburn said he intends to file a complaint with the Trenton Police Internal Affairs Unit over the alleged harassment.

Yardis Perez-Perez (MCPO)

A mother who abandoned her newborn daughter in a vacant building in New Jersey's capital city last year is now headed to prison.

Yardis Perez-Perez pleaded guilty last December to manslaughter and child endangerment charges. She was sentenced Friday to concurrent five-year state prison terms with no chance for early release.

Perez-Perez gave birth to a nameless child and left the baby girl for dead following a night of debauchery that involved drugs and wild sex on South Broad Street.

Mercer County prosecutors say the 27-year-old Trenton resident's child was only a day or two old when she was found April 23 in a vacant building. They say Perez-Perez gave birth to the child and abandoned her a short time later, providing little or no care for the infant.

The newborn's cause of death was ruled the result of “neonatal abandonment following unattended birth” with a contributing cause of death listed as “maternal use of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Zaire Smith

A city man has been convicted of murdering popular local barber Rasheen Jones during the commission of a July 2013 armed robbery.

Zaire K. Smith, 24, of Trenton, faces 30 years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty this week of first-degree felony murder and related offenses in the grisly slaying of Jones.

The murder occurred on July 23, 2013, when Smith and co-defendant Knovell Desmond targeted Jones in a senseless stickup. 

Jones, a 31-year-old father of three, was gunned down on East Stuyvesant Avenue while he was returning home from a trip he had made to a local convenience store, the victim of a robbery-turned-murder. He worked as a barber for 15 years and was remembered by family and friends as a hardworking family man.

Rasheen Jones, pictured here with his 7-year-old daughter, was shot to death on July 23, 2013, in Trenton.

Rasheen Jones

Desmond, 27, of Trenton, pleaded guilty in the case on Dec. 17, 2014, confessing to first-degree robbery in a plea deal that calls for his murder charges and weapons offenses to be disposed of at sentencing, according to court records.

Smith took his case to trial, where a jury convicted him Monday of first-degree murder during the commission of a crime, two counts of first-degree armed robbery, two counts of second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes, and one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

One month after the homicide, police filed complaint warrants charging both Smith and Desmond with murder and weapons offenses in the slaying of Jones. The U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Smith in Trenton on Aug. 22, 2013, and arrested Desmond in Lindenwold on Aug. 30, 2013, authorities said.

Knovell Desmond

Both defendants have been jailed at the Mercer County Correction Center on $1 million cash bail since their arrests, court records show.

Represented by private attorney Alan D. Bowman, Smith is scheduled to be sentenced April 12 before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Thomas Brown. The convicted murderer is looking at decades upon decades of prison time for taking his case to trial and losing, marking another major victory for seasoned Supervising Assistant Prosecutor James Scott.

Desmond is represented by pool attorney Tina M. Frost and will be sentenced at an undetermined date for his self-confessed role in the deadly armed robbery.

Jones worked at Mason’s barber shop on Pennington Avenue. His violent death shocked the community.

“They killed a working man!” Mason’s co-worker James Jackson said in a July 2013 interview with The Trentonian, tears running down his face. “I hate that he left us, but now he is at peace. All he was doing was taking care of his kids and they killed him.”

Convicted murderer Calier Samad is serving a life sentence at Trenton’s state prison while a co-defendant in the case has received a significantly less severe punishment.

Calier Samad

Samad, 31, of Trenton, was sentenced last month to 75 years of incarceration for murdering 22-year-old Chevin Burgess during the commission of a 2014 armed robbery and setting the victim’s body on fire in a vicious post-murder plot.

Life imprisonment is defined as 75 years of incarceration under New Jersey state law.

The co-defendant in the case, Joeryan Foreman, 26, of Trenton, pleaded guilty to second-degree aggravated arson and received eight years of incarceration for his role in the heinous crime, court records show. 

On the evening of Jan. 4, 2014, city firefighters found Burgess dead inside a burning car on the 100 block of Hart Avenue in Trenton. A medical examiner later determined that Burgess had died from a homicidal gunshot wound.

Authorities in April 2014 arrested Samad and Foreman and charged them both with murder. Foreman pleaded guilty last year to aggravated arson while Samad took his case to trial and lost on most counts.

Joeryan Foreman

On Dec. 13, 2018, a trial jury convicted Samad of first-degree felony murder during the commission of a crime, first-degree armed robbery, second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes and second-degree aggravated arson. The jury found him not guilty of first-degree purposeful murder and not guilty of second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, but those acquittals did not offset the weight of his convictions.

Mercer County Superior Court Judge Darlene Pereksta hammered Samad with life imprisonment at a Feb. 22 sentencing hearing.

Samad’s life sentence is broken down as follows: He must serve 65 years in the slammer for his murder conviction to be followed by 10 years of additional incarceration for torching the vehicle with the murder victim’s dead body inside. The sentence is subjected to the No Early Release Act, which means he must serve at least 85 percent of the term behind bars before being eligible for parole.

Samad is locked up at New Jersey State Prison and will be eligible for parole in May 2080, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections. If he survives his long prison stint, he will immediately be subjected to eight years of parole supervision upon his release from the big house.

The convicted murderer has one prior upper court conviction in New Jersey, for he previously served time in state prison for committing an April 2009 burglary in Ewing Township. Samad also has two out-of-state convictions from Pennsylvania. Furthermore, he has six municipal court convictions in the Garden State. The judge took that into account in rendering a punishment, according to Pereksta’s judgment of conviction.

“In sentencing this defendant, the Court considered the nature and degree of the crime, the need for punishment and deterrence, the defendant’s prospects for rehabilitation, the pre-sentence report, the defendant’s previous involvement in the criminal justice system, the recommendations of the prosecutor, defense counsel’s arguments at sentencing and the interest of the public,” Pereksta said in her judgment of conviction. “The Court is clearly convinced the aggravating factors substantially outweigh and preponderate over the nonexistent mitigating factors and imposes the sentence and awards jail credits as stated on this JOC in the interest of justice.”

Samad received 930 days of jail credit, effectively reducing his prison sentence by that amount. Unless he wins an appeal or receives a gubernatorial pardon or commutation, Samad is looking at six full decades of incarceration and won’t be eligible for parole until May 2080 at the age of 92.

Foreman, by comparison, only has to spend about three years in prison thanks to the lenient terms of his sentence. Foreman has been awarded 1,784 days of jail credit for being in custody from April 12, 2014, to Feb. 28, 2019, effectively reducing his prison sentence by that amount.

Pereksta sentenced Foreman on March 1 to eight years of incarceration subject to the No Early Release Act. He pleaded guilty in the case to second-degree aggravated arson and had the other counts — murder during the commission of a crime, armed robbery, possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes and unlawful possession of a handgun — all dismissed at his sentencing hearing, court records show.

Burgess was shot and killed during the course of a robbery. Prosecutors say Samad shot Burgess in the head and that the body was then driven to Hart Avenue, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Foreman admits he aided Samad in the violent crime, so the jury may have considered that as a factor in finding Samad not guilty on some of the counts in the indictment.

The judge found that Foreman “acted under a strong provocation” in committing the crime and credited Foreman for his willingness to cooperate with law enforcement authorities. Foreman’s guilty plea no doubt helped Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor James Scott win convictions against Samad in the trial by jury.

Foreman received eight years of prison time minus 1,784 days of jail credit because of his guilty plea and his lack of prior convictions, unlike Samad, who received life imprisonment because of his murder and aggravated arson convictions in addition to his prior criminal history.

This case represents Foreman’s first upper court conviction. He had four municipal court matters pending and four bench warrants, according to court records. He will be subjected to three years of parole supervision upon being released from state prison in a few years.

Samad was represented by defense attorney Andrew Duclair, and Foreman was represented by defense attorney Steven C. Lember. Both defendants have been ordered to provide a DNA sample and ordered to pay the costs for testing of the sample provided.

Justice has been served.

Two self-confessed killers — Jose C. Garcia and Wade Williams — are now serving time in the big house.

Jose C. Garcia (left) and Wade Williams

Garcia, 20, of Hamilton, has been sentenced to 17 years of incarceration for stabbing 48-year-old Brenda Garzio to death. He stabbed the victim multiple times on the on the 900 block of South Broad Street in the capital city about 11:10 p.m. May 28, 2017.

Williams, 43, of Trenton, has been sentenced to 12 years of incarceration for shooting and killing 51-year-old Tyrone “Big Face” King Sr. in broad daylight Sept. 17, 2017. The slaying occurred on the 900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in North Trenton. 

Tyrone King

Police arrested Garcia June 1, 2017, charging him with murder. He pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter last October and had his weapons offenses dismissed at the Jan. 9 sentencing hearing. He is currently incarcerated at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility and is scheduled to be released Nov. 11, 2031, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

Brenda Garzio

Police arrested Williams Dec. 5, 2017, charging him with murder. He pleaded guilty last October to first-degree aggravated manslaughter and had his weapons offenses dismissed at his Jan. 4 sentencing hearing. The 6-foot-2-inch, 400-pound man is currently incarcerated at South Woods State Prison and is scheduled to be released Feb. 15, 2028, according to the DOC.

Williams was previously arrested in August 2013 for distributing drugs in Trenton. He pleaded guilty in that case and was sentenced to four years of incarceration to be served concurrent to his 12-year prison sentence, DOC records show.

Garcia and Williams will both be subjected to five years of parole supervision upon release from state prison, according to court records.

Police investigate a murder in Trenton Tuesday afternoon. (Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman - Trentonian)

A reputed gang member who was suspected in several capital city shootings was gunned down Tuesday afternoon in a notorious crime hotspot.

Shaela Johnson was murdered in Trenton Tuesday.

Shaela Johnson, a 19-year-old member of the Crips street gang, was shot and killed around 2:15 p.m. when two gunmen sprayed up the 800 block of Stuyvesant Avenue, according to law enforcement who say she was shot approximately 14 times.

Police sources say video of the shooting shows the gunmen pull up in front of a deli, jump out of a vehicle and fire at Johnson and another person standing with her on the corner. The store was effectively closed for the day following the latest capital city bloodshed.

Sources say Johnson appears to be the target of the shooting, as one gunman stood over her and fired a few rounds while she was on the ground, striking her in the arms, chest and head.

Video shows a second gunman chase a second victim down the street, but it’s unclear whether that person was struck by gunfire, according to police.

Johnson was reportedly taken to the hospital via a pickup truck, rushed into emergency surgery and later pronounced dead. As of press time, no other victims have reported being shot during the incident.

Authorities blocked the intersection of Stuyvesant and Hoffman avenues with police vehicles and crime scene tape following the homicide, impacting students on their way home from school. A school bus driver was forced to make a U-turn in the middle of Stuyvesant Avenue.

Authorities say the 2012 Nissan Maxima used by the gunmen was stolen out of Hamilton on November 19. After the murder, police found the car engulfed in flames near the intersection of East Howell and Franklin streets. Officials say the fire was lit intentionally.

Shaela Johnson

Johnson was one of six people arrested in April last year following the attempted killing of Zaire Jackson, who was acquitted of murder charges in connection with the 2012 death of Irvin “Swirv” Jackson. Johnson and others were charged with weapons offenses after police found them in a nearby apartment with guns shortly after Zaire was shot in the stomach.

After a judge released the group from jail on the weapons offenses, Johnson was arrested seven months later for dealing heroin.

Court records show Johnson was on probation at the time of her death.

Johnson's killing is the second brazen daylight murder to happen in Trenton this month. Quanmir Spears, 28, was shot in the head on Spring Street two weeks ago.

As of press time, no one has been arrested in connection with Johnson’s murder. Anyone with information about the killing is asked to contact the Mercer County Homicide Task Force at 609-989-6406. Or email tips to mchtftips@mercercounty.org.

Trentonian staff writer Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman contributed to this report.

A woman was gunned down in the 800 block of Stuyvesant Avenue Tuesday, November 27, 2018. (Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman - Trentonian)

The state is suddenly prosecuting a new co-defendant in connection with the 2014 murder of 20-year-old Enrico Smalley Jr.

Alvie Vereen (left) and Shaheed Brown

South Woods State Prison inmate Alvie Vereen, 27, has been charged with accomplice liability murder and weapons offenses under a superseding indictment that also charged co-defendant Shaheed Brown as an accomplice in the four-year-old Trenton homicide case.

Prosecutors since summer 2014 have accused Brown of being the triggerman and sole party responsible for Smalley’s violent death, and Brown has subsequently weathered three murder trials that each ended with a hung jury.

Brown, 34, of Trenton, used a third-party shooter defense that implicated Vereen in the murder, but the state seemingly rejected that argument until this month, when the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office presented its case to a grand jury that resulted in the explosive superseding indictment charging both men with first-degree accomplice liability murder. 

“It is a horrific abuse of the justice system, and it is a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars,” Edward Harrington Heyburn, Brown’s defense attorney, said Tuesday in an interview about the superseding indictment. “There is no evidence Mr. Brown aided Alvie in any way.”

The new indictment accuses Brown and Vereen of shooting and killing Smalley on July 12, 2014. Each co-defendant operated “by his own conduct or as an accomplice of another,” according to the allegations in the charging documents.

Enrico Smalley Jr.

Following the 1:20 a.m. shooting, Trenton Police were dispatched to the corner of Poplar Street and North Clinton Avenue and found Smalley lying on the sidewalk in front of La Guira Bar suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head. Smalley was rushed to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Brown and Vereen were friends, and surveillance footage captures both co-defendants at the murder scene when Smalley got gunned down. About a month after the homicide, authorities found Brown and Vereen hanging out in Newark. Brown was arrested on murder charges, but Vereen back then was not charged in the case. The Trentonian previously reported that Brown and Vereen were persons of interest in a 2014 Newark carjacking case.

As the murder case played out, Brown sat in the Mercer County Correction Center on $1 million cash bail from Aug. 18, 2014, till this week, when a Superior Court judge ordered Brown to be released on electronic monitoring, prosecutors confirmed.

Meanwhile, Vereen is incarcerated in state prison for being in unlawful possession of a handgun in Newark on Aug. 17, 2014, and for committing an assault by auto in Trenton on June 11, 2016, according to public records. He pleaded guilty in both of those cases and is scheduled to be released from state prison on Sept. 15, 2020.

If convicted of first-degree accomplice liability murder, Brown and Vereen would face 30 years to life in prison.

Brown, who has prior convictions for aggravated assault and aggravated arson, continues to maintain his presumption of innocence in the murder case. Three trial juries over the last three years each could not reach a unanimous consensus on whether Brown was guilty or not guilty of murder and weapons offenses.

Brown’s defense attorney filed a motion last month seeking to get the original indictment dismissed, but the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office outmaneuvered him by pursuing the superseding indictment that keeps the case against Brown alive and well while finally targeting Vereen for his alleged role in the slaying of Smalley.

Heyburn said his client was released Monday evening from the Mercer County Correction Center. Brown has an electronic monitor on his ankle but is free to travel within a 100-mile radius of Trenton without any curfew limitations, according to Heyburn, who said his client is expected to appear at any future mandatory court proceedings.

Free on pretrial release after being jailed for 52 months, Brown is staying with his ex-girlfriend and his child in Trenton, according to Heyburn, who said Trenton Police confronted Brown during his Monday evening homecoming.

A friend drove Brown from jail to his new digs in Trenton. When Brown finally returned home Monday evening, “They were waiting there, stopped him, told him to get out of the car,” Heyburn said of the police. “They searched him, searched his bag. They knew exactly who he was. It is continued harassment that goes from the prosecutor’s office to the Trenton Police Department.”

Heyburn said he intends to file a complaint with the Trenton Police Internal Affairs Unit over the alleged harassment.

State prisoner Anthony L. Concepcion is serving additional time in the slammer for admitting he killed 39-year-old Patrick Walker in 2014.

Anthony Concepcion

Concepcion, 26, of Trenton, pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter in October and received a 12-year prison sentence last week. He was already serving a five-year prison sentence at South Woods State Prison for pleading guilty in another case to unlawful possession of a handgun, court records show.

Armed and dangerous, Concepcion was arrested Sept. 30, 2014, for packing heat in the City of Trenton without a permit to carry. He eventually posted $50,000 cash bail on Oct. 22, 2014, buying his way out of jail and using his freedom to slay Walker outside of Trenton’s La Guira Bar on Dec. 13, 2014. 

Weeks after the homicide, police re-arrested Concepcion in January 2015 and charged him with murder and weapons offenses on allegations he shot and killed Walker.

Patrick Walker

Concepcion became a New Jersey Department of Corrections inmate in May 2017 after pleading guilty in his initial weapons case. He later pleaded guilty in the homicide case after fighting the charges for years and failing to win an acquittal.

Concepcion’s murder trial ended without resolution in August due to a jury snafu. Members of the jury had conducted deliberations without all jury members being present, a clear violation of the judge’s instructions. The debacle tainted the judicial process and forced a mistrial.

The state was prepared to retry Concepcion on murder charges, but he averted a retrial by pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter, ending his presumption of innocence. Concepcion would have faced 30 years to life in prison if a jury had convicted him of murder.

The indictment originally charged Concepcion with first-degree murder, second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes, and second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun. He pleaded guilty Oct. 15 to first-degree aggravated manslaughter and had his weapons offenses dismissed at his sentencing hearing last Friday.

Mercer County Superior Court Judge Darlene Pereksta sentenced Concepcion to 12 years of incarceration. He must serve 85 percent of the sentence behind bars before he may become eligible for parole but has been awarded 1,431 days of jail credit, records show.

The self-confessed killer will be subjected to five years of parole supervision upon release from state prison and has been ordered to pay over $6,000 in restitution.

Police investigate the scene of a fatal shooting on the 300 block of Spring Street in Trenton.
Penny Ray - The Trentonian

The capital city concluded 2018 with 21 homicides, which includes the death of 52-year-old Michael Anderson, who was shot on a Wayne Avenue porch during the early morning hours of June 7, 2017.

Mercer County prosecutors confirmed Anderson’s January 15th death will be counted as a 2018 statistic, even though he suffered the gunshot injuries seven months prior to dying.

Last year’s homicide toll also includes three vehicular deaths, as well as the death of an abandoned newborn and the death of Tahaij Wells, who was shot and killed by police during a shootout at an all-night arts festival this past summer.

According to the state police uniform crime reporting unit, vehicular homicides are considered manslaughter and are not reported as a homicide statistic. Justifiable homicides are not counted in state police murder statistics either.

Therefore, state police will likely report Trenton’s official 2018 homicide number as 15 or 16, possibly excluding a fatal beating at the psychiatric hospital, and certainly excluding the newborn whose cause of death was ruled the result of “neonatal abandonment following unattended birth” with a contributing cause of death listed as “maternal use of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.”

The Trentonian, however, includes vehicular homicides, manslaughter cases and justifiable police-involved killings in its yearly homicide count.

Using census data and the 15 killings state police will report to the FBI, Trenton’s 2018 murder rate is 17.65 homicides per 100,000 residents.

In terms of fatalities, January was the deadliest month of 2018, perhaps foreshadowing the violence that lied ahead. Five homicide victims died that month, which concluded with the double murder of Ivan Rodriguez and Jerard Perdomo Santana. Three people were killed in each of the months of May, June and November.

Nineteen of the 21 homicide victims were male.

The South was the only Ward that experienced less than five killings: two people died in that ward last year.

Seven victims were in their 20s at the time of their death, and five victims were in their 30s when they died. Four teenagers were murdered in 2018 as well.

The oldest victim was 56-year-old Anthony Anderson, a convicted child molester whose body was found stabbed to death underneath a large tree trunk in a garbage-filled stretch behind an abandoned row home in the first block of Taylor Street.

Fifteen victims were black, six were Hispanic.

Shootings killed 15 people in the capital city, more than any other homicide method. One victim was beaten to death by a fellow Ann Klein Forensic Center patient.

Nine suspects were arrested in connection with six different homicide incidents that occurred in 2018; one of those cases has four suspects charged with various offenses. Only two of the homicide suspects arrested last year are female.

Issiaha Bivens

Cops arrested a Ewing man Wednesday night, charging him in connection with a murder that happened in November.

Issiaha Bivens, 20, was charged with murder, felony murder, robbery, attempted murder, theft, aggravated assault and weapons offenses related to the death of 27-year-old Eric Severino.

When homicide detectives searched Bivens’ Upland Avenue home they found 18 bricks of heroin in his bedroom, as well as several cell phones. As a result, Bivens has been additionally charged with possession of narcotics.

Severino, of Philadelphia, was shot to death while sitting in the driver’s seat of a white Dodge Journey that was parked in the 100 block of Walnut Avenue around 10:30 p.m. on November 18. He was rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound to his torso and later pronounced dead.

Investigators believe Severino’s death was the result of a robbery gone awry.

Bivens is being held at the Mercer County Correction Center pending a detention hearing.

The man who shot and killed 26-year-old Jermaine “Mooky” Johnson in an April 2016 broad daylight execution has been convicted.

Jamar McCoy

Jamar McCoy, 35, of Ewing, has been found guilty of murder and weapons offenses in connection with the brazen crime.

A trial jury handed down the verdict on March 14, exposing McCoy to decades of prison time when he is sentenced later this year.

Johnson, a city resident, was shot at least five times while sitting inside a Nissan Murano that was parked in a driveway on Hillcrest Avenue in Trenton’s West Ward near Cadwalader Park April 29, 2016. He later died at the hospital. 

In addition to slaying the 26-year-old victim, McCoy pistol-whipped Johnson’s brother after the shooting, authorities said.

Jermaine "Mooky" Johnson (Facebook photo)

Homicide detectives quickly solved the case, arresting McCoy on May 1, 2016, and formally charging him with murder the next day. He sat in jail on $1 million cash bail waiting for his day in court. He would have been better off pleading guilty.

The jury found McCoy guilty of first-degree purposeful murder, second-degree aggravated assault, second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, and second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun without a permit to carry. The jury found him not guilty on two counts of first-degree attempted murder, but McCoy still faces 30 years to life in prison on the murder conviction, court records show.

Before becoming a coldblooded killer, McCoy was already known to law-enforcement authorities as a prior menace to society. Police previously arrested McCoy on June 20, 2004, when they found him distributing drugs in Trenton.

He pleaded guilty to third-degree distribution of heroin near school property and was later sentenced to three years of incarceration after violating probation in 2005, court records show. That conviction stripped McCoy of the right to bear arms in New Jersey, which boasts some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the nation.

When a grand jury indicted McCoy on May 11, 2017, the final count in the indictment charged him with second-degree certain persons not to have a weapon due to a prior conviction. McCoy should have never possessed a handgun in the slaying of Johnson because he had previously confessed to being a drug dealer.

To ensure that McCoy had a fair trial, Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier made sure the jury did not know about McCoy’s prior drug conviction before finding him guilty of murder and weapons offenses.

After the jury issued its verdict, McCoy had to undergo a second court proceeding to resolve the final count in the indictment. The state was prepared to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that McCoy was a certain person not allowed to bear arms in New Jersey, but the defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree certain persons not to have a weapon rather than sit through a bifurcated second trial following his murder conviction, court records show.

Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Matos won the murder case against McCoy, who was represented by defense attorney Mark Fury.

McCoy is scheduled to be sentenced May 17 before Judge Billmeier, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

Edward Kevin Nock (contributed photo)

Convicted murderer Isaac Grey smiled and blew kisses Friday after a judge had sentenced him to more than 40 years of incarceration.

Despite being convicted of stabbing and killing Edward Nock, the defendant declared he is not the perpetrator who had attacked the victim at knifepoint.

“Your honor, I am no bad guy,” he told the court on Friday. “I am innocent, your honor. I didn’t do it, but I do take blame for letting other individuals in the house and letting it get out of hand.” 

Grey lived at the Nock residence and invited or enabled other people to crash at Nock’s Beakes Street apartment on the night of the murder. The slaying occurred about 9:45 p.m. June 30, 2015, after hours of drinking and arguments.

“I apologize deeply to the family,” Grey said Friday, “because as a young man I should have known better, but I am human and I made a mistake.”

A trial jury in January found Grey guilty of murder, witness tampering and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose for allegedly stabbing and killing 43-year-old Nock at Trenton’s Donnelly Homes housing complex.

Doris Nock, the victim’s mother, thanked Grey on Friday, saying his homicidal actions from 2015 has made the Nock family “much stronger.”

Other relatives and friends described Edward Nock as “honest” and “caring” and said he “didn’t deserve to go out the way he did.”

When police were dispatched to Nock’s apartment on the night of the murder, they found him lying on the floor suffering from a stab wound to the abdomen. Medics rushed Nock to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The killer fled from the murder scene, but authorities tracked down Grey and arrested him for the crime in Philadelphia two days after the homicide.

Grey, 35, of Trenton, was found guilty of first-degree murder on Jan. 30. The trial jury also convicted him of witness tampering, finding the defendant had attempted to bribe a witness in the case.

At the sentencing hearing on Friday, the prosecution argued for an appropriate punishment while the defense argued for leniency.

Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier sentenced Grey to 40 years of incarceration on the murder conviction and seven years of incarceration for the witness tampering. Grey must serve at least 34 years or 85 percent of the term behind bars on the murder conviction to be followed by seven consecutive years of continued imprisonment. New Jersey state law requires his witness tampering and murder sentences to be served consecutively, which amounts to 47 years of total incarceration in this case.

Grey received nearly 1,400 days of jail credit, which effectively reduces his prison sentence by that amount. The judge also ordered him to pay $5,000 in restitution to the victim’s wife to reimburse her for funeral costs. The judge took into account that Grey had six prior upper court convictions, including one for aggravated assault, as well as three municipal court convictions and a history of juvenile delinquency.

One of Grey’s siblings, a sister from Delaware, attended Friday’s sentencing hearing and told the court that “my brother is a kindhearted person” and “I love my brother to death.”

Wearing a beige jacket over his orange jumpsuit, Grey during much of the sentencing hearing had a smirk on his face and at times looked back at his sister with affection. After the judge handed down the prison sentence, Grey blew kisses and waved to his sister before the sheriff’s officers escorted him out of the courtroom.

“I think the judge put a lot of thought into this one,” defense attorney Mark Davis said of the prison sentence. “If Isaac Grey was in fact guilty this would be a fair and reasonable sentence. We intend to appeal, because he is not the one who committed the murder.”

Davis said his client never wanted Nock to get killed. “That was a friend of his,” he told the court. “That was the last thing he wanted to happen on that day.”

Nazier Francois

TRENTON — A city man has been arrested for the murder of 19-year-old Shaela Johnson.

Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday that Nazier Francois, of Chambers Street, is charged with murder and numerous other offenses, including attempted murder, conspiracy, aggravated assault, aggravated arson, weapons and tampering with evidence, related to the November 27, 2018 shooting death of Johnson.

The daylight killing of Johnson shocked the city as surveillance video showed two men jump out of a vehicle and gun down a woman, later identified as Johnson, in front of a deli on the 800 block of Stuyvesant Ave.

Law enforcement sources said at the time that she was shot approximately 14 times.

Sources said Johnson appeared to be the target of the shooting, as one gunman stood over her and fired a few rounds while she was on the ground, striking her in the arms, chest, and head.

A woman was gunned down in the 800 block of Stuyvesant Avenue Tuesday, November 27, 2018. (Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman - Trentonian)

The video shows a second gunman chase a second victim down the street, but it’s unclear whether that person was struck by gunfire, according to police.

Johnson was reportedly taken to the hospital via a pickup truck, rushed into emergency surgery and later pronounced dead.

Authorities say the 2012 Nissan Maxima used by the gunmen was stolen out of Hamilton on November 19. After the murder, police found the car engulfed in flames near the intersection of East Howell and Franklin streets. Officials say the fire was lit intentionally.

The investigation is ongoing. The second suspect has not been arrested. Anyone with information is asked to contact the MCHTF at (609) 989-6406. Information can also be emailed to mchtftips@mercercounty.org.

Johnson was one of six people arrested in April of 2017 following the attempted killing of Zaire Jackson, who was acquitted of murder charges in connection with the 2012 death of Irvin “Swirv” Jackson. Johnson and others were charged with weapons offenses after police found them in a nearby apartment with guns shortly after Zaire was shot in the stomach.

After a judge released the group from jail on the weapons offenses, Johnson was arrested seven months later for dealing heroin.

Court records show Johnson was on probation at the time of her death.

Shaela Johnson

Police investigate Trenton's final murder of 2018, which left a woman dead in November. (Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman - Trentonian)

Shaela Johnson was murdered in Trenton Tuesday.

A brutal murder case has finally been solved.

Three defendants have been charged in connection with the November 2018 slaying of 19-year-old Shaela Johnson and the subsequent torching of the suspected getaway vehicle.

Nazier Francois (left) and Keith Hamilton are two of the three defendants charged in connection with the November 2018 murder of 19-year-old Trenton woman Shaela Johnson.

Nazier “Fredo” Francois and Watson “Boone” George have each been charged with first-degree accomplice liability felony murder while the third defendant, Keith S. Hamilton, has been charged with second-degree conspiracy to commit aggravated arson and fourth-degree conspiracy to destroy physical evidence.

Francois, 20, of Trenton, and George, 19, of Ewing, are accused of being the gunmen who shot and killed Johnson in broad daylight. The victim was shot at least 14 times by two gunmen who sprayed up the 800 block of Stuyvesant Avenue outside of a deli around 2:15 p.m. Nov. 27, 2018. She was on probation at the time of her violent death.  

Shaela Johnson was murdered in Trenton Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018.

Hamilton, 21, of Trenton, is accused of aiding and abetting Francois and George in the plot to set the getaway vehicle on fire following the grisly homicide.

Authorities say the 2012 Nissan Maxima used by the alleged killers was stolen out of Hamilton on Nov. 19, 2018. Police later found the car engulfed in flames near the intersection of East Howell and Franklin streets not long after the deadly shooting. Officials say the fire was lit intentionally.

Charging documents

Authorities on April 3 filed separate complaint warrants charging Francois, George and Hamilton in connection with the murder of Johnson and the subsequent arson that destroyed a Nissan.

Francois and George face 18 criminal offenses, including first-degree accomplice liability murder and numerous weapons offenses. Hamilton has been hammered with six offenses charging him as an accomplice to arson and evidence tampering, according to court records.

Francois has been incarcerated at the Mercer County Correction Center without bail since April 5 following his arrest last Thursday. A Superior Court judge on Wednesday ordered Francois to be detained on pretrial detention, records show. Francois is represented by defense attorney Mark G. Davis.

Court records show George has retained John Furlong as his defense attorney effective Wednesday in connection with the murder case. George has another pending case on his rap sheet, for Trooper Chris Talar of the New Jersey State Police arrested George Feb. 21 in Ewing, charging him with weapons offenses, receiving stolen property and unlawful possession of drugs, records show.

Hamilton has been in jail since March 8 for allegedly violating probation. He pleaded guilty in a weapons case last year and was sentenced to five years of probation, according to public records. Hamilton is represented by public defender Nicole Carlo in the murder case and has a detention hearing scheduled for Friday.

While three people have been charged in connection with the homicide and arson effective April 3, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office has not immediately announced the charges against the trio. The office has released some information about Francois and Hamilton but has not divulged any details about George’s alleged role in the slaying as of Wednesday.

Sources say Johnson appeared to be the target of the grisly shooting, as one gunman stood over her and fired a few rounds while she was on the ground, striking her in the arms, chest and head. Video shows a second gunman chase a second victim down the street, but it was unclear whether that person was struck by gunfire.

Johnson was reportedly taken to the hospital via a pickup truck, rushed into emergency surgery and later pronounced dead. She was actually one of six people arrested in April 2017 following the attempted killing of Zaire Jackson, who in February 2017 was acquitted of murder charges in connection with the 2012 shooting death of Irvin “Swirv” Jackson.

Johnson and others were charged with weapons offenses after police found them in a nearby apartment with guns shortly after Zaire Jackson was shot in the stomach two years ago.

After a judge released the group from jail on the weapons offenses, Johnson was arrested seven months later for allegedly dealing heroin. She was executed in a brazen shooting last November at the age of 19.

The police investigation revealed numerous .45 and .40 caliber shell casings in the intersection of Stuyvesant and Hoffman avenues, as well as on the sidewalk and in the entryway of a deli on Stuyvesant Avenue in Trenton’s West Ward, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

Area surveillance footage showed two males exiting a Nissan Maxima and firing at the victim. Police located the vehicle engulfed in flames at the intersection of Howell and Franklin streets a few hours later, authorities confirmed in a news release.

The case remains under investigation. Anyone with additional information is urged to contact the Mercer County Homicide Task Force at (609) 989-6406. Information can also be emailed to mchtftips@mercercounty.org.

Jamar Tucker

Jamar Tucker, an up-and-coming rapper from Trenton, was shot and killed on his birthday, The Trentonian has learned.

Tucker, who turned 36 on Friday, is the deceased gunshot victim whose body was found in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, authorities confirmed.

The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office says Tucker was found dead in the early morning hours of Friday in the 300 block of South Bellevue Avenue. An autopsy conducted by the Bucks County Coroner’s Office determined Tucker died of a gunshot wound, authorities said Saturday in a news release. 

Bucks County detectives were searching for a vehicle belonging to Tucker, a black 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is currently unaccounted for as of Saturday afternoon, according to the Bucks DA’s Office. The vehicle had New Jersey registration plates bearing T69HDG.

Homicide victim Jamar Tucker of Trenton is seen standing beside his 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which police were looking for on May 11, 2019, as part of their homicide investigation.

Tucker’s family and friends in Trenton and beyond were mourning his loss on social media.

“Happy birthday Champ, may you R.I.P.,” Samuel Council Jr. wrote in a Facebook comment.

Known by the stage name Tuck and the Instagram handle jtuck609, Tucker was affiliated with Block Life Entertainment and has official music videos featured on YouTube.

“Just a kid from a dark place called Trenton, NJ shining my light on the world,” Tucker says in his Instagram profile.

It’s not clear what circumstances led to Tucker’s violent death, but he appeared to be on a positive track as a hip-hop lyricist.

“I represented him on some stuff that happened many years ago, and since then I have known him as an up-and-coming rap star,” defense attorney John “Jack” Furlong said Saturday of Tucker. “Jamar was a guy who was trying to find his way out of the streets, and I thought he succeeded.”

Furlong described Tucker as a “man of his word” and a “reliable guy.” He learned about the rapper’s untimely demise upon receiving a “frantic phone call” from Tucker’s mom.

“I don’t like having these conversations with parents who have to bury their children,” Furlong said Saturday in an interview with The Trentonian. “We always want to be children burying parents, not the other way around. I confess I am being worn down by the resort to bullets. We are not going to be able to shoot our way out of our differences.”

“Jamar Tucker was not a hardcore street guy,” Furlong added. “He did not live the thug life. He is just a guy who grew up in Trenton and had one or two scrapes with the law.”

Tucker was arrested in 2006 on drug distribution charges and served time behind bars. He was last sentenced to probation in 2013 for resisting arrest, court records show.

Tucker’s violent death may have been related to a “power struggle regarding drug dealing in North Trenton,” according to a police source.

“I just know a man is dead from a gunshot wound,” Furlong said. “His death comes to me as a vivid reminder that the availability of guns and bullets is too casual, too easy for people with no prospects to solve their disputes.”

No arrests have been announced in the homicide as of Saturday afternoon. Police did not release any suspect descriptions.

Anyone with information on the slaying or information on the whereabouts of Tucker’s Jeep Grand Cherokee is urged to contact Bucks County Detectives at (215) 348-6354 or to submit tips to Buckscrimetips@buckscounty.org.

Trentonian staff writer Isaac Avilucea contributed to this report.

Yardis Perez-Perez (MCPO)

A mother who abandoned her newborn daughter in a vacant building in New Jersey's capital city last year is now headed to prison.

Yardis Perez-Perez pleaded guilty last December to manslaughter and child endangerment charges. She was sentenced Friday to concurrent five-year state prison terms with no chance for early release.

Perez-Perez gave birth to a nameless child and left the baby girl for dead following a night of debauchery that involved drugs and wild sex on South Broad Street.

Mercer County prosecutors say the 27-year-old Trenton resident's child was only a day or two old when she was found April 23 in a vacant building. They say Perez-Perez gave birth to the child and abandoned her a short time later, providing little or no care for the infant.

The newborn's cause of death was ruled the result of “neonatal abandonment following unattended birth” with a contributing cause of death listed as “maternal use of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Zaire Smith

A city man has been convicted of murdering popular local barber Rasheen Jones during the commission of a July 2013 armed robbery.

Zaire K. Smith, 24, of Trenton, faces 30 years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty this week of first-degree felony murder and related offenses in the grisly slaying of Jones.

The murder occurred on July 23, 2013, when Smith and co-defendant Knovell Desmond targeted Jones in a senseless stickup. 

Jones, a 31-year-old father of three, was gunned down on East Stuyvesant Avenue while he was returning home from a trip he had made to a local convenience store, the victim of a robbery-turned-murder. He worked as a barber for 15 years and was remembered by family and friends as a hardworking family man.

Rasheen Jones, pictured here with his 7-year-old daughter, was shot to death on July 23, 2013, in Trenton.

Rasheen Jones

Desmond, 27, of Trenton, pleaded guilty in the case on Dec. 17, 2014, confessing to first-degree robbery in a plea deal that calls for his murder charges and weapons offenses to be disposed of at sentencing, according to court records.

Smith took his case to trial, where a jury convicted him Monday of first-degree murder during the commission of a crime, two counts of first-degree armed robbery, two counts of second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes, and one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

One month after the homicide, police filed complaint warrants charging both Smith and Desmond with murder and weapons offenses in the slaying of Jones. The U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Smith in Trenton on Aug. 22, 2013, and arrested Desmond in Lindenwold on Aug. 30, 2013, authorities said.

Knovell Desmond

Both defendants have been jailed at the Mercer County Correction Center on $1 million cash bail since their arrests, court records show.

Represented by private attorney Alan D. Bowman, Smith is scheduled to be sentenced April 12 before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Thomas Brown. The convicted murderer is looking at decades upon decades of prison time for taking his case to trial and losing, marking another major victory for seasoned Supervising Assistant Prosecutor James Scott.

Desmond is represented by pool attorney Tina M. Frost and will be sentenced at an undetermined date for his self-confessed role in the deadly armed robbery.

Jones worked at Mason’s barber shop on Pennington Avenue. His violent death shocked the community.

“They killed a working man!” Mason’s co-worker James Jackson said in a July 2013 interview with The Trentonian, tears running down his face. “I hate that he left us, but now he is at peace. All he was doing was taking care of his kids and they killed him.”

TRENTON — A city man was gunned down Wednesday evening on the first block of Bellevue Ave and pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at a local hospital, police said

Sources say the victim was shot several times and that the Mercer County Homicide Task Force was investigating, but no official confirmation was available about details.

Police say they have not identified the victim as of 9 p.m.

Mayor Reed Gusciora weighed in Wednesday evening. “It’s a tragedy for all Trentonians and indicative of gun violence across the country in urban America,” Gusciora said. “We will continue to step up law enforcement under the new Police Director and address the root causes of indiscriminate shootings involving young persons in our neighborhoods. One shooting is one too many in our city.”

Sources have identified the victim as a relative of mayoral aide Andrew Bobbitt. Bobbitt has worked for Mayors Doug Palmer, Eric Jackson, and Gusciora.

This is the fifth homicide in Trenton this year, but May has been a deadly month in and around the capital city.

Willie West, 69, of Ewing, was shot in the stomach with a sawed-off shotgun on the first block of Hart Avenue just before 7:20 Saturday night, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.

Maurice Rowe, 30, of Trenton, was shot to death Tuesday, May 7, near Oakland and Hoffman avenues.

The brazen shooting was interrupted by Trenton Police street crime detectives Stephen Szbanz and John Carrigg who were responding to an unrelated call on Hoffman Avenue when they heard gunshots, prosecutors said.

Rowe was killed five days after 40-year-old Javier Morales was gunned down, with his back turned, near Hudson and Pearl streets.

Trenton musician Jamar Tucker was also murdered this month when he was found shot to death in Langhorne on his birthday, May 10.

Leydi Lemos-Delgado, 32, of Hamilton was stabbed to death in her Hamilton home Sunday, May 12.

Zaire Smith

A city man has been convicted of murdering popular local barber Rasheen Jones during the commission of a July 2013 armed robbery.

Zaire K. Smith, 24, of Trenton, faces 30 years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty this week of first-degree felony murder and related offenses in the grisly slaying of Jones.

The murder occurred on July 23, 2013, when Smith and co-defendant Knovell Desmond targeted Jones in a senseless stickup. 

Jones, a 31-year-old father of three, was gunned down on East Stuyvesant Avenue while he was returning home from a trip he had made to a local convenience store, the victim of a robbery-turned-murder. He worked as a barber for 15 years and was remembered by family and friends as a hardworking family man.

Rasheen Jones, pictured here with his 7-year-old daughter, was shot to death on July 23, 2013, in Trenton.

Rasheen Jones

Desmond, 27, of Trenton, pleaded guilty in the case on Dec. 17, 2014, confessing to first-degree robbery in a plea deal that calls for his murder charges and weapons offenses to be disposed of at sentencing, according to court records.

Smith took his case to trial, where a jury convicted him Monday of first-degree murder during the commission of a crime, two counts of first-degree armed robbery, two counts of second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes, and one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.

One month after the homicide, police filed complaint warrants charging both Smith and Desmond with murder and weapons offenses in the slaying of Jones. The U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Smith in Trenton on Aug. 22, 2013, and arrested Desmond in Lindenwold on Aug. 30, 2013, authorities said.

Knovell Desmond

Both defendants have been jailed at the Mercer County Correction Center on $1 million cash bail since their arrests, court records show.

Represented by private attorney Alan D. Bowman, Smith is scheduled to be sentenced April 12 before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Thomas Brown. The convicted murderer is looking at decades upon decades of prison time for taking his case to trial and losing, marking another major victory for seasoned Supervising Assistant Prosecutor James Scott.

Desmond is represented by pool attorney Tina M. Frost and will be sentenced at an undetermined date for his self-confessed role in the deadly armed robbery.

Jones worked at Mason’s barber shop on Pennington Avenue. His violent death shocked the community.

“They killed a working man!” Mason’s co-worker James Jackson said in a July 2013 interview with The Trentonian, tears running down his face. “I hate that he left us, but now he is at peace. All he was doing was taking care of his kids and they killed him.”

The co-defendants who shot and killed 19-year-old Devahje Bing in 2013 are now state prisoners.

Tahj Laws, 22, and Kareem McNeil, 28, have each pleaded guilty for their roles in the homicide and are serving hard time in state prison, records show.

(From left) Tahj Laws and Kareem McNeil

A Superior Court judge formally punished the duo last month, sentencing Laws to 18 years of incarceration and McNeil to 10 years behind bars.

The shooting occurred about 5 p.m. May 25, 2013, at Trenton’s Oakland Park Apartments following a verbal argument between Laws and Bing. Laws escalated the conflict by obtaining a handgun from McNeil, who willingly handed over the weapon, authorities said. 

Laws fired several shots from the weapon, striking Bing several times in the upper torso, prosecutors said. The victim later died at the hospital.

Devahje Bing

Police arrested Laws on May 27, 2013, two days after the slaying. He was a 16-year-old juvenile on electronically monitored house arrest at the time, authorities said.

McNeil, a convicted burglar, was 22 and serving non-custodial probation at the time of the homicide, records show. Police arrested him several weeks later.

A grand jury handed up an indictment in September 2014 charging Laws and McNeil with murder and weapons offenses. Both men pleaded guilty last September, Laws confessing to first-degree aggravated manslaughter and McNeil owning responsibility for second-degree reckless manslaughter, records show. Both of the killers are from Trenton.

In addition to their prison sentences, both defendants have been ordered to pay $18,637 in restitution joint and several. Most of that money will compensate the Bing family for their loss, according to the judgment of conviction.

Laws has been awarded 2,185 days of jail credit for being in custody from May 27, 2013, to May 20, 2019. He is currently incarcerated at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility and is scheduled to be released from prison on Sept. 12, 2028, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

McNeil has been awarded 2,161 days of jail credit for being in custody from June 20, 2013, to May 20, 2019. He is currently incarcerated at South Woods State Prison with a parole eligibility date of Dec. 19, 2021, and a maximum release date of June 29, 2022, according to the DOC.

Upon release from state prison, McNeil will be subjected to three years of parole supervision and Laws will be subjected to five years of parole supervision. Mercer County Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw sentenced both men on May 21.