A key witness who was allegedly held hostage by a group of men charged with killing a Liberian immigrant in 2011 has “gone off the grid” after he received phone calls and threatening letters from two suspects in Trenton’s infamous “trunk case,” prosecutors said.
Now Mercer County prosecutors must decide in the next four months whether to charge suspected triggerman Danuweli Keller and co-defendant Mack Edwards with witness tampering in one of Mercer County’s oldest murder cases.
Prosecutors were scheduled to deliver opening statements this week in the suspected killers’ murder trial but it has been pushed back to February because of the witness tampering allegations.
The two accused killers are being tried along with Phobus Sullivan for the execution-style slaying of Dardar Paye, a Liberian immigrant and U.S. veteran who was kidnapped, robbed and shot inside the basement of a Monmouth Street home on Jan. 16, 2011 in Trenton.
Paye’s body was placed in garbage bags and stuffed in the trunk of a Buick, which one of the suspects drove while attempting to dispose of the body.
The suspects were apprehended following a high-speed car chase involving three vehicles – one carrying Paye’s body – that began in Trenton and ended in Pennsylvania, where police used spike streets to stop some of the fleeing suspects, prosecutors said.
The three men are also accused of carjacking, kidnapping and robbing another city man months before the murder.
Assistant Prosecutor Michael Grillo revealed at a hearing prior to the start of the murder trial that his office intercepted several phones calls between Keller and witness and kidnap victim Alfonso Slaughter.
In the phone calls, Keller advised Slaugher to “lay low” because detectives from the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office are going to be looking for him to come testify at the murder trial, Grillo said.
The phone calls were accompanied by threatening letters, sent to the home of one of Slaughter’s relatives.
Prosecutors further alleged Keller and Mack sent a courier to Slaughter to get him to sign a statement recanting what he told authorities about being taken hostage, locked in a basement, strapped to a chair and robbed at gunpoint of jewelry and cash on Halloween night 2010.
Slaughter eventually escaped and gave authorities a detailed account of the terrifying ordeal, prosecutors said.
“This has been an ongoing campaign to subvert the criminal justice system,” Grillo said.
The calls were made on recorded lines at the Mercer County Correction Center, Grillo said, some coming days after prosecutors subpoenaed Slaughter on Sept. 5 to come testify.
Prosecutors played portions of the tapes for the suspects’ defense attorneys.
In one alleged exchange, Keller tells Slaughter, “They’re gonna be on you. They’re gonna be looking for you. You gotta lay low. The judge isn’t going to put up that buls---. He’s not gonna put [the trial] off a third time. You just gotta lay low. I’ll be home by Thanksgiving.”
Another time, Keller puts Edwards on the phone with Slaughter, urging him not to cooperate with prosecutors.
Slaughter supposedly responds, “Don’t worry. You guys got nothing to worry about. I won’t bring no harm on you if you don’t bring no harm on me.”
Slaughter apparently told Keller people visited him at his home.
Keller didn’t seemed surprised, Grillo said, warning Slaughter to be careful.
“I know. Those people are on some crazy sh--. You gotta stay away from them.”
Then the week of Sept. 24, two “startling” unsigned letters arrived at Slaughter’s house, Grillo said.
They made it clear what would happen if Slaughter testified. “If you come to court, anyone can get it.”
Grillo said the letter contained similar language Edwards used on one of the calls with Slaughter.
The suspects’ attorneys dismissed the phone calls and letters and asked a judge to move forward with the trial.
Mark Fury, Keller’s attorney, said his client and Slaughter knew each other prior to the kidnapping case and talked weekly for five years.
They’d discuss “social relations in the street and sporting events,” Fury said, stressing his client never threatened Slaughter.
About the letters, Fury said, he didn’t know who wrote them.
In a phone interview with The Trentonian, Fury would say is his client was “locked up” and didn’t pressure Slaughter into not coming forward.
Slaughter was expected to tell jurors about his horrifying encounter with the three suspects months before in the same basement where Paye was shot and killed.
But he did not show for an evidentiary hearing Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday’s opening statements, and has been almost completely unreachable.
Grillo said a detective briefly spoke to Slaughter earlier this week.
Since then, detectives have been unable to track down Slaughter, who has a plea bargain with prosecutors in an unrelated drug case.
Fury termed the witness’ unexpected absence a “procedural dilemma” for prosecutors, leading the judge to declare a mistrial since a jury had already been impaneled.
Grillo said his office is still investigating the witness tampering allegations but will likely ask a grand jury in the coming months to return a superseding indictment against Keller and Mack, which could further complicate the multi-defendant case.
Two other suspects are being tried separately and another has struck a deal with prosecutors.
The four-month setback in the trunk case, which earned its name after defense lawyers tried to get Paye’s body suppressed from evidence by claiming cops illegally searched the car trunk, marks the latest delay for a case that has dragged on for more than five years.
It has been derailed in the past by a series of lawyer blunders.
Keller has gone through several attorneys in that span.
One of his former counselors, famed New Jersey defense attorney Richie Roberts, was bounced from the murder case after he was suspended from the practice of law earlier this year.
A new trial date has been tentatively set for Feb. 27, 2017.
Defendants Williams Brown and Abdutawab Kiazolu are being tried separately, while a sixth man named in an indictment has admitted his role in Paye’s fatal shooting and struck a deal with prosecutors to testify at trial.
Keller’s phone privileges at the county jail have been revoked. He complained to Judge Robert Billmeier when he was told he is only allowed to call his attorney for the next few months.
“You forfeited that right,” the judge said. “When you abuse your privilege, this court will take action.”