“Itz tym 2 go.”
Those were the chilling last words – sent in a desperate text message – from a New Jersey teenager moments before he and his friends were shot to death execution-style by a gang of thugs in a Newark schoolyard nearly three years ago, according to his sister, who survived the attack.
Terrance Aeriel, 18, tapped out the frantic text to his sister, Natasha, as he spied a group of beer-drinking men gathering near the metal bleachers of Newark’s Mount Vernon School playground.
Terrance feared his sister and their two friends were about to be set-upon by the gathering group, and tried to usher them out of the park. But they didn’t get far.
The crew robbed them, and moments later Terrance, Iofemi Hightower and Dashon Harvey, both 20, were lined up against a wall and each shot in the head.
Natasha was shot in the head, too, after being sexually assaulted and stabbed. She was the only one who survived.
Natasha, 22, recounted the grisly details of the August, 2007 during a round of emotional testimony today at the murder trial of Rodolfo Godinez, the first of six defendants to face a jury.
Aeriel said the six thugs confronted her group shortly before midnight and pulled out guns as they tried to get into Natasha’s Toyota Corolla.
“I was scared they were going to take my car,” Natasha said. “But I didn’t think they were gong to go crazy like they did.”
After rifling through their pockets, several of the assailants took turns molesting Natasha before she was separated from her brother and friends.
“All I kept saying was Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Natasha said. “It was probably a little too loud because someone said shut the f—k up. I was scared of being killed.”
She said one of the robbers pulled her hair and cut her neck with a machete.
She said her brother and friends were taken away to a different part of the park. Then she heard shots.
“I was screaming, ‘Don’t do that, don’t do that.’ Then somebody shot me.”
Newark schoolyard killing trial opening statements:
Newark schoolyard killing trial prosecutor opening statements: