Horace J. Gordon is now a convicted murderer.
Horace Gordon (COURTESY OF SOUTHSIDE REGIONAL JAIL)
Gordon, 38, of Trenton, got convicted on all counts Thursday for shooting and killing 29-year-old Harvey Sharp in June 2015.
“The evidence was really clear in this case,” Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Amy Devenny told The Trentonian after the verdict came down. “We’ll be recommending life in prison. That’s the least I can do, having the victim’s mother there. No mother should have to bury their child. Having her hear, ‘Guilty,’ that made it all worth it to me.”
Gordon claimed self-defense in the slaying, but a jury unanimously found him guilty of first-degree purposeful murder.
“It was not a reaction or mistake,” Devenny said of Gordon’s conduct. “He meant to kill the victim, and that’s exactly what he did.”
The murder occurred on the first block of Cummings Avenue on June 24, 2015. Gordon killed Sharp and then fled from New Jersey to southern Virginia, where he was later apprehended by a U.S. Marshals regional fugitive task force.
Harvey Sharp
The shooting happened on Sharp’s birthday, and sources say it was the result of a “petty argument.”
In addition to being convicted of murder, the jury also found Gordon guilty of second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes and guilty of second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun. The jury reached its verdict Thursday afternoon on Day 2 of deliberations, with the victim’s family present to hear the outcome.
The convicted murderer is scheduled to be sentenced 2 p.m. May 25 before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier. Gordon could receive 30 years to life imprisonment, which state law defines as 75 years of incarceration.