Cops charged a 15-year-old in the tragic Christmas Day double murder that claimed the lives of two innocent teens in New Jersey.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s office said the teen, who has been remanded to a county youth facility, murdered Zainee Hailey, 13, and Kasson Mormon, 15. He was also charged with attempted murder in the wounding of a third youth.
Hailey and Mormon were killed after a masked gunman sprayed the teens with bullets in Newark then took off running at 10 p.m. on Dec. 25.
Hailey was killed while taking out trash at her family’s house, where she had been opening Christmas presents. Morman was sitting on a nearby porch.
Prosecutor Carolyn Murray told reporters Tuesdayr that the motive “is still under investigation.”
“But we have established to our satisfaction, actually to our dissatisfaction, that Zainee Hailey was an innocent bystander who stumbled into a situation,” she said.
Zainee’s grandfather, Michael Peterson, said the girl didn’t know the shooter.
“She just so happened to be doing her chores and taking out the garbage that night. She didn’t know him,” he said. “Things happen.”
The shooter, who was not identified because of his age, could be charged as an adult.
“Yes, a 15 year old can be tried as an adult and yes that is being contemplated,” Murray said. “It’s a legal determination that is being made by a family court judge upon application by the prosecutor. We have to make a decision as to whether we will seek to have him waved up. If we make that decision than the family court judge will make the ultimate decision.”
Funeral services were held earlier Tuesday for the girl at Zion Baptist Church in Elizabeth, which she attended.
Rev. Kevin White told the mourners that he had spoken with detectives handling the case and they were “absolutely certain that they have the perpetrators.”
“The perpetrators have been arrested. God is God. God is good,” he said, and the mourners responded with exclamations of “Hallelujah.”
Morman’s patents called for an end to gun violence in the area on Monday.
“It hurts me to see kids crying about losing a friend. This has got to stop,” said Richard Morman, Kasson’s father.
Peterson added, “Let’s put the guns down.”