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
Call it the “Making a Murderer” effect.
When jury selection kicks off next week in the second murder trial of two men accused of killing Mercer County corrections officer Carl Batie, prosecutors will ask prospective jurors whether they watched the popular true crime Netflix docuseries and if it impacted their views on police, prosecutors and the criminal justice system.
Hykeem Tucker
During jury selection, prospective jurors are regularly asked about the types of newspapers, magazines and books they read and televisions shows and movies they watch.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys do so to focus in on potential juror biases and will do so moreso in the retrial of suspected killers Maurice Skillman and Hykeem Tucker.
Their first trial, held earlier this year, ended in a mistrial – one of four hung juries and an acquittal in the last six murder trials tried in Mercer County.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
Ricardo Montalvan Jr.
Two city teens have been arrested in connection with the murder of Ricardo Montalvan Jr.
The males, ages 16 and 17, are each charged with murder, felony murder, robbery and related weapons offenses in connection with Montalvan’s death. Their names have not been released because they are juveniles.
Montalvan, 23, was gunned down last week while sitting in a silver Toyota Camry in the 200 block of Whittaker Avenue. He later died at the hospital.
Police say the 16-year-old suspect was detained immediately after the shooting and later charged in connection with the incident. The 17-year-old was apprehended Monday morning at his residence.
Jamar McCoy
A Ewing man accused of gunning down Jermaine “Mooky” Johnson was caught on tape fleeing the scene of the shooting, prosecutors said.
Jamar Mcoy’s bail hearing went forward Monday after it was rescheduled last week when a Mercer County public defender said she had a conflict of interest. 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
A juror “vanished” into thin air and was replaced Thursday by an alternate in the second murder trial of former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown.
The woman, Juror No. 8, was the second juror to be dismissed in the retrial of Brown, who is accused of gunning down Enrico Smalley Jr. outside of La Guira Bar in July 2014, leaving only 12 jurors remaining.
That was significant because the loss of an additional juror would result in a mistrial, forcing prosecutors and the defense to embark through a third trial.
Shaheed Brown listens to testimony from State Police Detective Joseph Itri. Gregg Slaboda - The Trentonian
And it almost ended that way, again, Thursday.
Those 12 jurors returned to a courtroom after about four and a half hours of spirited discussion and uttered the same words that haunted those at Brown’s first trial: We are deadlocked and further deliberations will not be fruitful.Read more
