The tantrum-throwing, paper-tossing twin brother of a suspected killer behaved a bit better on the witness stand the second time around.
Marquis Skillman
The last time he was on the stand a few months ago, Marquis Skillman, the twin brother of suspected killer Maurice Skillman, tossed the written statement he gave Trenton detectives to the ground and kept his eyes downcast, never eyeballing jurors.
He wasn’t helpful to prosecutors or defense attorneys at the first trial for Maurice Skillman and alleged accomplice Hykeem Tucker, who are charged with murder in the slaying of off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie.
Batie was shot in the head in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012 as he stood on the deck of the Baldassari Regency banquet hall.
At the first trial in February, Marquis Skillman, who was not charged in connection with Batie’s murder, cursed at court officials and responded 57 times that he didn’t know or didn’t remember what attorneys were talking about when they asked him about information he provided to authorities during a January 2013 interview with Trenton Detective Scott Peterson.Read more
A crime scene detective testified Tuesday about some of the finer details of an investigation that led to the arrest of two city men who are suspected of killing off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie.
Marcellos Rosa Delgado, a crime scene technician with Trenton Police, described combing the murder scene for evidence outside of Baldassari Regency banquet hall in the early-morning hours of Nov. 11, 2012.
She was called out to the scene shortly before 2 a.m., after chaos engulfed the banquet hall when a gunman opened fire on the packed balcony, striking Batie in the head. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Maurice Skillman
Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker are on trial a second time, charged with murder in Batie’s slaying. Skillman was the alleged gunman, while Tucker acted as a lookout, prosecutors said.Read more
Life was good for Carl Batie.
The former corrections officer had a flourishing career. He had just bought a new BMW and planned to take it for a spin with his brother, Karshawn, to the Baldassari Regency banquet hall on Nov. 10, 2012.
The two brothers were a few years apart but inseparable whether at home or in the bathroom. They headed to the banquet hall around 10 p.m. for a party celebrating the re-election of President Barack Obama.
Maurice Skillman
When they arrived, Carl flaked out $50 to pay both he and his brother’s cover charge.
“He treated me,” Karshawn said on the witness stand Thursday.
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She was the strongest of her five sisters, a “rock of knowledge” and the “family glue,” who transcended her hardscrabble upbringing.
“She was the rationalization of our dismal existence,” Rose Chapman, the younger sister of murder victim Keisha Alexander, said Thursday at sentencing for her sister’s killer.
Jorge Rodriguez, 22, was a “soulless, rhythmless child” who could have made his life better but instead gave into his own abuse-filled past.
Jorge Rodriguez
His defense attorney, Kathleen Redpath-Perez, said he was sexually abused as a child and spent most of his life in the care of child welfare officials. He was reunited with his mother at 16 and graduated from Nottingham High School in Hamilton but later found himself in trouble.
They came from tough backgrounds but led very different lives. Alexander was a 49-year-old phlebotomist. Rodriguez was a serial burglar who owned eight convictions as a juvenile.Read more
Lady Justice is supposed to be blind.
Prosecutors and Mercer County Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson, however, may be slipping off the blindfold and tipping the scales in an upcoming murder trial, legal experts said.
Maurice Skillman
Smithson has indicated he will allow prospective jurors in the murder retrial of two Trenton men accused of gunning down off-duty Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie to be questioned about whether they watched “Making a Murderer.”
The hit Netflix docuseries chronicled the life of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin convict who has been held out as the poster child for flaws in the criminal justice system.Read more
Shaheed Brown is shaping up to be the new “Boom Bat” of Mercer County.
Brown’s murder case has drawn comparisons to convicted murderer and Latin Kings leader Jose “Boom Bat” Negrete because of the difficulties prosecutors have had trying the cases.
Shaheed Brown listens to testimony from State Police Detective Joseph Itri. Gregg Slaboda - The Trentonian
It has also shined a bright light on a spate of mistrials and acquittals that have legal experts debating the way prosecutors try homicide cases in Mercer County and whether a “string of bad luck” could impact the future of Angelo Onofri.Read more
Shaheed Brown listens to testimony from State Police Detective Joseph Itri. Gregg Slaboda - The Trentonian
Enrico Smalley Jr’s brother crumpled on a bench outside of the courtroom, unable to hold back bloodcurdling shrieks that echoed through the hallways of Mercer County criminal court.
That was hours before the second trial of former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown ended in mistrial for the second time in six months.
Smalley’s family spent most of Friday outside of Judge Andrew Smithson’s courtroom, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst and reconciling that they would likely be back here again in a few months after a jury hinted Thursday it was deadlocked.Read more
When a former Newark gang member befriended a city man, the last thing he could have envisioned was being the individual a defense attorney would accuse of pulling off what a prosecutor described this week as the brutal assassination of a Ewing man.
But that is the position Alvie Vereen is in, testing the strength of his friendship with suspected killer Shaheed Brown.
The two were said at trial to be close, Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley suggesting Vereen followed Brown around like a “puppy dog” outside of a city bar that became the scene of a grisly murder.
Shaheed Brown listens to testimony from State Police Detective Joseph Itri. Gregg Slaboda - The Trentonian
Brown is on trial for a second time for allegedly gunning down Enrico Smalley Jr. on July 12, 2014, outside of La Guira Bar.
While it has been asked to access the credibility of a third-party guilt defense implicating Vereen, the jury does not know Brown and Vereen were arrested together in Newark for an alleged carjacking, about a month after Smalley was gunned down, according to sources with knowledge of the arrest.Read more
The bail hearing for a Ewing man accused of gunning down Jermaine “Mooky” Johnson was moved to next week because an attorney said she was unable to represent him.
Jermaine “Mooky” Johnson (Facebook photo)
Caroline Turner, an attorney for 32-year-old Jamar McCoy, said it would be inappropriate for her to argue the Ewing man’s bail because she represents Johnson’s brother in another criminal matter.
Judge Peter Warshaw agreed to push back McCoy’s bail hearing until Monday. He is charged with murder and weapons offenses for allegedly gunning down Johnson, 26, on April 26, while he sat inside of a Nissan Murano parked in the driveway of a Hillcrest Avenue residence.Read more
Prosecutors will try a city teen accused of fatally shooting 16-year-old Ciony Kirkman as an adult, officials confirmed.
Ciony Kirkman (contributed photo)
The 17-year-old boy has been charged with murder, six counts of aggravated assault and weapons offenses. His name and photo have not been released because of his age.
Casey DeBlasio, spokeswoman for the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, said prosecutors will ask a judge to allow them to try the teen as an adult. Prosecutors have 30 days to ask for the waiver to adult court, she said.Read more
