Homicide Watch Trenton

HOPEWELL - A Trenton man who allegedly admitted to killing his cellmate at the Mercer County Correction Center last year has been indicted in connection with the case.

Lamar Gaines, 19, was indicted Wednesday on one count of first-degree murder in connection with the strangulation and beating death of 38-year-old Darryl Boone.

Around 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 5, Boone was found dead at the Mercer County Correction Center after corrections officers saw water flowing from under the door of a cell in the receiving and detention area. Prosecutors allege that Boone’s cellmate, 19-year-old Lamar Gaines, is responsible for the murder, and that Gaines admitted to the killing by telling correction officers, “I killed him.”
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A city man was found shot and killed inside a vehicle Wednesday morning on McKinley Avenue.

According to law enforcement, around 6 a.m. Wednesday, police were dispatched to McKinley Avenue to investigate a suspicious vehicle that was parked on the side of the road. Police were told that someone was inside the vehicle, and when officers arrived on scene, they found a male inside a silver Jeep Cherokee suffering from a gunshot wound.

Criminal Investigation Bureau Detectives and the Mercer County Homicide Task Force were then dispatched to investigate the matter. And a medical examiner later pronounced the man dead at the scene.

The victim was later identified as 25-year-old William B. Massaquoi Jr.

Sources told The Trentonian that Massaquoi was found in the driver’s seat with the engine running, and that he had been shot in the back of the head. But police would only confirm that the vehicle’s engine was running; they declined to comment on where Massaquoi was seated in the vehicle and the location of his gunshot wound.
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A judge ordered a mental status evaluation Tuesday for Jack Isabell, who is accused of shooting and killing 34-year-old Raheim Hayes.

“I think Mr. Isabell is a very dangerous individual and obviously he has some mental issues,” Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Korngut said. “When he was arrested, he said something about the martians were coming after him or something to that effect.”
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A city man who has been in custody in connection with an April shooting that left one victim injured was charged last week with the murder of 34-year-old Raheim Hayes.

Jack Isabell, 41, is charged with murder, felony murder, robbery and several weapons offenses in connection with Hayes’ death.
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A day after a Franklinville man was found lying dead on a city street from multiple gunshot wounds, his criminal history revealed he was no stranger to the law.

Police were summoned to East Hanover Street on reports of gunfire just before midnight on Wednesday and saw 26-year-old Keith Day on the ground bleeding excessively. He was later pronounced dead at Capital Health Regional Medical Center, according to the prosecutor’s office.

A criminal complaint by the Trenton Municipal Court shows Day was arrested May 12 on the 300 block of Rutherford Ave, less than a 100 feet away from Gregory Elementary School, for possession and for a distributable amount of marijuana and for possession of crack-cocaine.

A third degree crime, Day was released a day later on a $2,500 bail, according to the complaint.
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Just hours after the New Jersey Attorney General’s office announced there would be a stronger police presence on the city’s streets following the shooting of a 9-year-old on Monday, a city man was shot and killed on East Hanover Street according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s office.

Just before midnight on Wednesday, police were called to the 200 block of East Hanover Street on a report of shots fired, the prosecutor’s office said.

When police arrived, they found a man on the sidewalk bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.

The man, identified as Keith Day, 26, of Trenton, was taken to Capital Health Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, Casey DeBlasio, a spokeswoman for the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said.
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According to family members, 24-year-old Ira Charles Jr. drove to a friend’s house to retrieve a memory card for his camera, and then they both walked to a corner gas station on the morning that Charles was shot and killed.

“Ira must have been thinking that it was going to be a fast trip to get the memory card and come back because he didn’t tell anyone,” his sister Janeira Charles said in a recent conversation.

On the afternoon of May 3, 2013, about 12 hours before Charles was gunned down, he asked his sister if she had an extra memory card that he could borrow. Janeira Charles was getting dressed at the time, and she was in a hurry to pick up items for a baby shower. So, she told him, “No.”

“I kinda blame myself now because I didn’t stop and take the time to look for the extra memory card,” Janeira Charles said.
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Believers from across Mercer County gathered on the front steps of Shiloh Baptist Church Thursday evening for National Day of Prayer, and afterward, a group of interfaith leaders visited each of the 11 2014 murder sites.

“We’re using this National Day of Prayer as a time to pray for each of those 11 families,” Shiloh Pastor Darrell Armstrong said. “I absolutely believe that prayer changes things. And we are in a spiritual fight for the minds, spirits and bodies of the children of our city.”
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The suspect in the death of a Trenton man has been returned to New Jersey after he was captured in Miami.

Robert E. Byers, of Trenton, has been charged with the shooting death of Devon Hewitt on Nov. 21, 2013.
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A man was found dead Thursday morning near Sanhican Drive and police are calling it a homicide.

“It appears he may have suffered a gunshot wound,” Lt. Steven Varn said.

Varn said police received a call around 6:51 a.m. Thursday reporting a body near the canal. And when officers arrived on-scene, they found a man behind Sanhican Liquors suffering from a gunshot wound. The victim was later pronounced dead at the scene.

Mercer County Prosecutors later identified the victim as 23-year-old Aaron Lewis, of Hamilton.
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