Homicide Watch Trenton

Jamar McCoy

A Ewing man has been arrested in connection with the murder of Jermaine “Mooky” Johnson, who was gunned down last week.

Jamar McCoy, 32, was arrested early Sunday morning and charged with murder and related weapons offenses for allegedly shooting Johnson this past Friday. Read more

Trenton police investigate a murder on Hillcrest Ave in the West Ward. Sources say a man was shot while sitting inside this Nissan Murano. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

A city man was killed in broad daylight Friday afternoon, becoming the second murder victim this week.

Twenty-six-year-old Jermaine Johnson, who was identified on social media as Mooky Johnson, was shot in the first block of Hillcrest Avenue a little after 4 p.m. Friday. Read more

A Trenton man who has said he is not willing to spend a day in prison for allegedly killing two city men was hit with a jaw-dropping offer that guarantees he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he accepted it.

Markquice Thomas

Markquice “Tank” Thomas was indicted for the slaying of 22-year-old Jared Littlejohn, of Ewing, who was kidnapped and killed in September 2012 during a botched robbery, prosecutors said.

Thomas pleaded not guilty to killing Littlejohn when he was arraigned Friday before Judge Robert Billmeier.

He previously pleaded not guilty to killing 44-year-old Joseph “Power God” Gaines, a former drug dealer turned city activist, two years later, in March 2014.

Prosecutors extended a “global” plea offer calling for Thomas to serve 62 years in prison. The deal packages two murder charges with a drug case. Read more

Former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown poured his attorney a cup of water.

Defendant Shaheed Brown listens to trial testimony. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

Harried defense attorney Edward Heyburn needed it after giving a long-winded and disjointed opening statement Thursday, in his client’s second trial for allegedly gunning down Enrico Smalley Jr. outside of La Guira Bar on July 12, 2014.

Both attorneys’ opening remarks to jurors were restrained, devoid of some of the more explosive material highlighted at the first trial and later in the day when a judge cited a reporter’s social media rumblings to deny allowing Brown to be freed on bail while his trial plays out.Read more

“Your honor, please thank and excuse juror …”

No. 10 was the “hot seat” on the third day of jury selection in former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown’s second murder trial. Virtually anyone who sat in it Wednesday was a goner.

Defendant Shaheed Brown listens to trial testimony. (Gregg Slaboda - Trentonian)

There was the AMC movie theater manager who said there was “nothing special about me.” The attorney for pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Meyers Squibb with the ex-husband who is a law professor at Howard. She was sent packing by Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley.

Another gunshy man couldn’t keep his voice up. It was a telltale sign for Judge Andrew Smithson that he was nervous and wasn’t a fit for a jury tasked with deciding whether former Brown gunned down Enrico Smalley Jr. outside of crime-ridden La Guira Bar in July 2014.Read more

Ciony Kirkman (contributed photo)

The teenage girl who was shot in the head over the weekend while in a minivan on Jersey Street was declared legally dead Tuesday night.

Ciony Kirkman, 16, was declared legally dead at Capital Health Regional Medical Center around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Kirkman was inside a stolen minivan with a group of other kids when the vehicle was ambushed by gunfire on Jersey Street around 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Several sources told The Trentonian that residents of Jersey Street were warned the street was “going to be lit up like a firecracker” minutes prior to the shooting. Read more

Prosecutors say this surveillance photo shows Shaheed Brown (left) and Enrico Smalley Jr. minutes before Smalley was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar on July 12, 2014.

Defense attorney Edward Heyburn sounded like famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, interjecting race into the retrial of former Newark gang member Shaheed Brown.

By the end of the first day of jury selection Monday, Heyburn had already pulled out the race card, lamenting that too few African Americans are in the jury pool.

Heyburn has not hidden his desire for the jury to be representative of his client, who is black.

Of the roughly 100 people who showed up for jury selection, 52 were told to return Tuesday. Only a handful are black, Heyburn said.

Some prospective jurors were dismissed because of financial and medical hardships. Some said they were reluctant to sit on a murder trial, Heyburn said. And others “thought my client was guilty even though all they heard was a brief statement from the judge about the case and saw he was black,” Heyburn said. Read more

Virgil Howard

A Willingboro man released from jail three months ago was arrested Monday and charged in connection with the shooting death of 52-year-old Elliot Simon Jr.

Virgil Howard, 26, was arrested in a motel room in Bristol, Pa., by members of the U.S. Marshals Service. He is charged with murder, felony murder, robbery and related weapons offenses in connection with Simon’s death.

Simon was shot twice in the chest April 8, during what investigators believe to be a robbery gone awry. Police found Simon lying in the middle of the road in the 100 block of Boudinot Street, and he later died at the hospital.

Elliot Simon Jr. (contributed photo)

Simon was married to the late Tia Green, whose 19-year-old daughter Tiara Green was killed in a June 2013 shooting on West State Street.

State records show that Howard was released from the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in January this year after serving time for drug offenses.

Howard’s bail was set at $1 million cash only.

A man was shot and killed near the intersection of North Hermitage Avenue and Boudinot Street. This is a view of the crime scene on Saturday morning after the murder. (Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman - Trentonian)

A city man was shot in the chest Friday night and later died at the hospital, ending a two-month period of no homicides in the capital city.

Police found Elliot Simon Jr. lying in the middle of the road in the 100 block of Boudinot Street a few minutes after 9 p.m.

Simon was shot at least twice in the chest, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. He was taken to the hospital and died from his injuries about an hour after the incident.

Simon celebrated his 52nd birthday the day before he was murdered.

Elliot Simon Jr. (contributed photo)

Police say ShotSpotter detected gunfire near 37 North Hermitage Avenue, and officials believe Simon tried to flee to his West Ward home on Boudinot after being shot, but collapsed in the street.

Several customers on Saturday patronized the Hermitage Deli and Grocery store at the corner of Boudinot and Hermitage and expressed frustration over the city’s latest homicide.

“I heard the gunshots last night. I heard ‘Boom! Boom!’ Two shots,” a woman said after exiting the deli. “This is a shame. It is very sad.” Read more

Edward Kevin Nock (contributed photo)

A city man has been indicted in connection with the stabbing death of 43-year-old Edward Nock.

Isaac Grey, 32, was indicted last week and charged with murder and weapons offenses in connection with the June 2015 incident that left Nock bleeding on the floor of a Beakes Street apartment.

When police were dispatched to that apartment on the night of June 30, they found Nock lying on the floor suffering from a stab wound to the abdomen. Nock later died at the hospital.

Grey was identified as a suspect in the murder shortly after the incident, and police arrested him in Philadelphia a couple of days later. He remains in jail on $750,000 bail.