A city man wanted for the murder of Patrick Walker was arrested Friday in a hotel in Florida.
Walker, 39, was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar near the corner of North Clinton Avenue and Poplar Street around 2 a.m. on Dec. 13. He later died at the hospital and became the second person to be shot and killed outside the bar last year.
Anthony Concepcion
Anthony Concepcion, 22, was arrested Friday by the U.S. Marshals Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force, which was notified of his whereabouts by detectives working the case in Trenton.
Prosecutors say Concepcion was found in a hotel in Altamont Springs, Florida. He is being held at the Seminole County Jail where he awaits extradition to NJ. Concepcion’s bail is set at $500,000 cash or bond.
Two city men were sitting on the front porch of their city residence in the evening hours of Oct. 16, 2014, when they were approached by a city man clad in a gray sweater, wielding a .45-caliber automatic handgun.
Randy Kareem Washington
The two didn’t know it at the time, but the unknown black male was Randy Kareem Washington, 33, a man authorities say terrorized the city during a fourth-month crime spree that claimed the lives of 43-year-old George Jamison and Silas Johnson, 64.
Washington, charged in five armed robberies and the shooting deaths of the two city men, was charged Tuesday with a sixth armed robbery and an additional count of attempted murder related to the Oct. 16 holdup outside the Centre Street residence. He is being held at a county jail on $2.1 million bail on the murder charges.
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One of two city men charged in the shooting death of James Austin, the son of a veteran city cop, plans to file a motion to dismiss an indictment charging him with murder, his attorney said.
Andrew Mark Ferencevych, an attorney for Raheem Currie, 22, unveiled plans at a Monday status hearing but didn’t specify the ground the motion would be based. His client has entered a not guilty plea and has been offered a plea deal that calls for a 10-year sentence if he pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit murder.
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A grand jury returned a five-count indictment Wednesday charging a city teen with the murder of Shamere Melvin, who was gunned down in December 2013.
Melvin, 17, was shot and killed in the 300 block of North Clinton Avenue around 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 18, 2013. When police arrived on-scene, they found him lying on the sidewalk against a chain-link fence suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. Melvin was pronounced dead at the scene. Read more
The attorney for a city man charged with murder in the shooting death of 24-year-old Jahmar Hall said it’s an “injustice” her client remains jailed on a $300,000 cash-only bail while the alleged killer is at liberty awaiting trial.
Daniel McCargo, 28, an alleged accomplice of Curtis Grier, has been held at the Mercer County Correction Center since he was arrested last April. Grier, 28, has been free since posting a $300,000 bail shortly after his arrest last April, Assistant Prosecutor Brian McCauley said.
The men have been offered plea deals that call for 30-year prison sentences on charges of first-degree murder and weapons offenses in connection with the April 19, 2014 murder, McCauley said. Both men entered not guilty pleas at brief status hearings Monday in Superior Court.
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Dating back to 1980, there are 175 unsolved Mercer County homicide cases.
In recent months, several relatives of murder victims have voiced frustration because their loved one’s case has not been solved. Grieving families want justice, and rightfully so. There’s a common misconception, though, in this grief and outrage that Trenton Police are solely responsible for investigating homicides that occur in the city. When, in fact, the Mercer County Homicide Task Force consists of detectives from several different law enforcement agencies.
“The homicide task force is a force multiplier for our police department,” Trenton Police Lt. Steven Varn said. “The amount of resources and manpower that the task force is able to provide to the city is much more than we could actually do on our own.” Read more
Nine days after asking a judge to delay the start of an upcoming trial for two city men suspected in the 2008 slaying of a convicted drug dealer, Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Al Garcia said he no longer needs time to track down a crucial witness, paving the way for jury selection to get underway later this month.
Garcia said at a Friday status hearing he no longer plans to call Damon Jefferson, a Trenton police crime-scene detective who worked on the case, to the stand to testify. Afterward, Garcia said it remains to be seen the effect of not having Jefferson available to testify. Read more
North Ward Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson in her Mill Hill home.
When North Ward Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson purchased her Mill Hill home in the 1980s, the neighborhood was infested with drug dealing.
“There were constant drug drops,” Caldwell-Wilson said about the 200 block of Jackson Street. “There were cars continually coming and going and there were parties all night long.”
She was born and raised in Scotland, but moved to New Jersey after marrying a man from Freehold. Caldwell-Wilson unintentionally found the property she would later call home while driving through Trenton. “I was drawn to it,” she said.
When she first bought the house, she had no knowledge of the parties and drug deals because she drove through during the day and most of the neighboring properties were vacant and boarded up. There were several families living in the 10-room home that Caldwell-Wilson purchased, so she helped each of them find another place to live. As she began restoring the property, she realized the true plight of the neighborhood.
“There were angel dust factories on this street,” the councilwoman said. Read more
The numbers in this story are pulled from Homicide Watch Trenton’s database, unless otherwise noted. For more information, use the sorting features of the victims and suspects databases, or explore the map.
In 2014, the city experienced 34 homicides, which includes the death of Darnell Stafford, who was justifiably shot and killed by police.
Although justifiable police shootings are reported to the FBI, they are not published as a homicide statistic by state police. Therefore, New Jersey State Police will report Trenton’s official homicide number as 33. The Trentonian, however, includes justifiable police shootings in its yearly homicide count. Read more
Less than two months after Acting Attorney General John Hoffman was appointed to the position, 52-year-old Barry Church was struck and killed by a stray bullet while sitting on his front porch.
The event led to the creation of a multi-faceted crime fighting initiative placing a significant number of state police officers on the city’s streets and enlisting the help of neighboring law enforcement agencies.
“I remember thinking how sad it is that the city is in a place where people can’t sit comfortably on their porch at the end of a summer day,” Hoffman said in a recent interview. “I got some people together to sit down in my office and we said, ‘This has to end; we have to do more than we’re doing right now.’” Read more
