GUILTY NJ - Five people killed in two-month crime spree, Jersey City, Feb-Apr 2010

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100413/ap_on_re_us/us_nj_killing_spree

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – A teenager has been charged with killing five people — including a couple on the day of their engagement party — during a two-month crime spree a veteran prosecutor called one of the most extraordinary displays of wanton, gratuitous violence he's ever seen.

Shiquan Bellamy, 19, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to all five slayings. He appeared in a New Jersey courtroom while wearing dark-green prison scrubs and cuffed at the waist and wrists, answering "yes, sir" in a barely audible whisper to a judge's questions.

Prosecutors had charged Bellamy in the April 4 shooting deaths of Michael Muchiaki, 27, and his fiancee, Nia Haqq, 25, who were returning to their Jersey City home from their engagement party Easter Sunday when they were killed during what police say was a botched carjacking.

Bellamy, also of Jersey City, is charged in that case with felony murder, armed robbery and weapons offenses along with his cousin Latonia Bellamy, 19, and Darmelia Lawrence, also 19. The two women have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a possible life sentence upon conviction.

Hudson County prosecutor Edward DeFazio said "great detective work" by his office's homicide squad and Jersey City detectives then tied Shiquan Bellamy to three prior murders, and additional charges were brought against him.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/jersey.city.murders.2.1623324.html

On the day three suspects were arrested for a horrific double murder, more than 500 mourners gathered to say goodbye to one of the victims, 27-year-old Michael Muchiaki, at Monumental Baptist Church in Jersey City.

All three suspects are 19-year-old neighbors of the victim. Two of them are young women, and one of the women told investigators she used her weapon just to feel what it would be like. :furious:

Muchiaki and his fiancée, Nia Haqq, were murdered early Easter morning after returning from an engagement party. The killers gunned down the couple on the sidewalk near their car, but couldn't start the vehicle so they settled for stealing the contents.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2010/04/although_only_25_mother_says_n.html

By Sarah Rahman/The Jersey Journal
April 09, 2010, 8:35AM

An ambitious traveler, a shoe fanatic and an avid video gamer, Nia Haqq was a passionate 25-year-old.

"She lived a solid, filled life. She's done more in her young years than most people do in their 80s," her mother, Majeeda Haqq, told The Jersey Journal earlier this week as she prepared to bury her only child.

Nia and her fiancé, 27-year-old Michael Muchioki, were shot to death during a robbery early Sunday as they returned home to Jersey City from their engagement party.

Since then, tributes to the couple have poured in as Nia and Muchioki are recalled as loving, hard-working young professionals with bright futures.

Such a beautiful couple. It sounds like they were living their lives the right way, only to be murdered by those that weren't.

I'd like to see all three get the death penalty. Of course, what's the death penalty nowadays? Living rent free for fifteen or twenty years while you exhaust your appeals?

lizzybeth said:

Such a beautiful couple. It sounds like they were living their lives the right way, only to be murdered by those that weren't.

I'd like to see all three get the death penalty. Of course, what's the death penalty nowadays? Living rent free for fifteen or twenty years while you exhaust your appeals?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, New Jersey no longer has the death penalty. It was repealed in 2007.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/12/nj_death_penalty_is_expected_t.html

I agree with you that it would be more than fitting in this case. According to police, the victims were each shot twice in the head at point-blank range.
This was an act of utter depravity.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2011/01/jersey_city_man_charged_in_fiv.html

January 3, 2011

A 19-year-old Jersey City man accused of committing five of Jersey City's 25 murders last year was arraigned in Hudson County Superior Court today on his third murder charge.

"It was an extraordinary explosion of violence," said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio of the allegations against Shiquan Bellamy of Arlington Avenue who appeared before Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale.


...Bellamy is also charged in the April 4 murders of Michael Muchioki, 27, and Nia Haqq, 25, the Jersey City couple that was fatally shot outside their Randolph Avenue home as they returned from their engagement party. This case is expected to be presented to a grand jury at the end of this month or the beginning of next month.

Three people were arraigned for the execution slayings of Michael Muchiaki and his fiancee, Nia Haqq. The arraignment was on April 4, 2011, the one-year anniversary of the crime.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2011/04/three_jersey_city_teens_arraig.html

I can find nothing more recent than this in the news. Who knows when they'll be brought to justice for this heinous act.

Shiquan Bellamy was found guilty last September of murdering this young couple. He never expressed any remorse, and as the verdicts were read, erupted in a string of expletives and was taken out of the courtroom.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/...omicide_punches_table_and_shouts_as_verd.html

On January 17th of this year he was sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 127 years. His cousin was sentenced last year to life for his role in the killings.
The judge used the word "depravity" in describing Bellamy's actions, and said he killed the couple to “satisfy a sick desire to see what it’s like to shoot someone.”

Thank goodness justice was done here.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2014/01/bellamy_sentencing.html

Latonia Bellamy was convicted and sentenced last year for the murders. She will be eligible for parole in 93 years.

Here she is smiling at her arraignment back in 2011:

http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/pgmain/img/jersey-journal/photo/-0aa3349deaaa2d72.JPG

And here she is at her sentencing. A different mood entirely:

http://media.nj.com/jersey-journal/photo/2012/06/11214471-large.jpg