A violent holiday season in Essex County has grown even bloodier with the Christmas Day killings of a 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, who was struck by a stray bullet as she threw out the trash in front of her Newark home.
The shooting on Schley Street, in the city’s South Ward, killed Zainee Hailey, a seventh-grader at a nearby elementary school and a singer in her church choir, and Kasson Morman, who attended Central High School.
Kasson’s close friend — 14-year-old Abdul "Scooter" Frazier, a freshman at Weequahic High School — was shot in the neck and seriously injured.
Authorities released no motive for the attack, but two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said it appeared one of the boys had been targeted as the pair stood on the porch of a three-story home in the 100 block of Schley Street. Abdul lived on the home’s first floor, a relative said.
Zainee, who lived on the third floor, simply stumbled into the gunfire as she and her 7-year-old brother carried trash to the street that night, police said. The brother was not injured.
The shooting pushed Newark’s 2013 homicide total to 102 — the highest since 2007 — and marked the latest in a series of high-profile slayings that have rocked communities around Essex County over the past two weeks.
The spasm of violence includes the shooting death of Hoboken lawyer Dustin Friedland, 30, during a carjacking at the upscale Mall at Short Hills; the killing of college freshman Reginald Terry, 18, at a party in Newark; and the spray of gunfire that left three people dead and two others injured outside an Irvington go-go bar shortly after midnight on Christmas Day.
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