When police were investigating a brutal August 2013 murder in North Trenton, a man who had previously served time in state prison for robbery and selling drugs sent a text message claiming he was the gunman responsible for the slaying.
“I just shot and killed somebody,” Dalord Dumas wrote in a text message that he sent to a friend on Aug. 23, 2013, the same night that Trenton hip-hop lyricist Jafar “Young Farr” Lewis was fatally gunned down.
The friend, Ishmael Raines, asked Dumas if he was joking, and Dumas responded he was “serious,” not joking. That prompted Raines to alert the authorities.
As Dumas was driving with his romantic date, Jennifer Bellamy, in his front passenger seat, he parked his vehicle near Raines’ home and soon realized that police officers were pulling up on him with their guns drawn.
Officers placed Dumas into a patrol car, and two detectives eventually questioned him for several hours at Trenton Police headquarters, but the officers did not charge him with any crimes and actually gave him a ride to Bellamy’s home.
Dumas, 40, testified Monday at Wayne Bush’s murder trial about the whole ordeal. He admitted to sending the “strange” text, but said he was intoxicated on vodka when he sent the “bull s---” text.
“I said that I had killed somebody,” Dumas said under cross-examination. “I was intoxicated, and I was talking to someone I thought was a friend.”
Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor William Fisher asked Dumas if he had shot somebody on Brunswick Avenue and then asked him if he had a gun on the night of Aug. 23, 2013.
“No sir,” Dumas said Monday in response to Fisher’s questions.
When police brought Dumas into custody for questioning, Dumas allowed them to search his phone and vehicle for evidence and also agreed to speak to police without requesting a lawyer because, he said, “I didn’t have anything to hide.”
Although Dumas sent a text message claiming to be the killer, police determined that Dumas was joking and ultimately arrested and charged Wayne Bush, 39, with the slaying.
Bush has been held in custody on $1 million bail ever since he surrendered to the authorities on Aug. 30, 2013. He has been charged with murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon on allegations he armed himself with a handgun and shot and killed 26-year-old Jafar Lewis.
Wayne Bush
John Furlong, Bush’s defense attorney, probed Dumas under cross-examination Monday in ways that not only highlighted Dumas’ criminal history — he was sentenced to five years of prison on drug charges in 1997 and sentenced to three years behind bars for robbery in 2010 — but Furlong also got Dumas to acknowledge his history of bearing false witness.
Furlong asked Dumas if he had ever lied to police.
“Yes, I have,” Dumas confirmed.
Then Furlong asked Dumas if he had ever lied under oath.
“Yes, I have,” Dumas said.