A Mercer County Grand Jury has returned indictments against two men in the murder of 19-year-old Elvin Kimble.
The 19-year-old was gunned down on a city street in November 2015.
Elvin Kimble
According to the prosecutor’s office that on November 24, 2015 around 12:39 a.m., police officers were dispatched to the area of Chestnut Avenue and Rusling Street on a report of shots fired. Officers arrived and found evidence of a shootout between at least two people on either side of Rusling Street, but did not locate a victim.
Later, at 6:18 a.m. police were called to 112 Rusling Street after receiving a report that a resident’s vehicle was struck by gunfire. When police responded, a Division Street resident approached the officers to report a man lying dead between a parked car and a fence in his driveway. That man was later identified as Elvin Kimble; he suffered a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Jermaine Johnson
Following an investigation by Detective Nancy Diaz and the Mercer County Homicide Task Force, complaints were signed on January 14, 2014 charging Gary Spears and Jermaine Johnson with Kimble’s murder. The pair remain in jail on $1 million bail.
Prosecutors said that Spears, 34, of Trenton, and Johnson, 40, of Ewing, were each charged on one count of first degree murder, one count of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and one count of second degree unlawful possession of a handgun. Spears was also indicted on one count of second degree certain person not to possess a firearm.
The case was presented to the grand jury by Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Ward.
In January 2015, Ward said that an hour before Kimble was shot he was seen breaking into Johnson’s vehicle. Ward said in January that according to an unnamed witness Johnson gave chase and Kimble allegedly fired in his direction.
It is alleged that Johnson recruited the help of Gary Spears to retaliate against Kimble. At a January 2015 bail hearing prosecutors believed that Spears fired the shot that ended Kimble’s life.