Prosecutors say man helped hide murder fugitive
TRENTON >> A New Jersey man who had been implicated in a string of robberies in the capital city and a neighboring Pennsylvania borough is accused of helping an accused killer evade authorities, prosecutors said.
Raekwon Fulmore, 21, whose last known address was in Sicklerville, was charged with hindering for allegedly harboring a fugitive from justice while police investigated the fatal shooting death of 20-yearold city woman Keyauna Hughey.
Hughey was shot to death the morning of Sept. 9, inside her city apartment on the 200 block of Spring Street. Neighbors had claimed the woman was pregnant at the time of her death, but a county prosecutor spokeswoman disputed that Monday.
At a bail hearing, it was revealed Hughey’s alleged killer has also been apprehended and charged with her death. Officials did not publicly announce the arrest of the accused killer and shared few details about him because he is a minor.
The 17-year-old, from Bucks County, Pa., is expected to be tried as an adult for murder.
County prosecutor spokeswoman Casey DeBlasio said her office has 30 days to waive the boy up as an adult.
Fulmore, who is being held on $5,000 bail, is not directly involved with shooting Hughey, prosecutors stressed at his bail hearing. He is charged with a single third-degree hindering count for allegedly driving the killer away from the murder scene to a flophouse across the bridge in neighboring Pennsylvania.
Assistant Prosecutor John Boyle said surveillance showed Fulmore’s car – registered in his name – arriving with two others prior to the murder.
Boyle mentioned a third individual, whom he labeled a “suspect,” but it appears that person was never charged.
Police have video which captured the sound of gunshots, Boyle said.
Fulmore and the teen were tracked by authorities to a home in Bucks County, prosecutors said.
Fulmore’s attorney said he had no knowledge of the murder and didn’t speak to police about it.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, while investigating Fulmore in an unrelated gun case, stumbled upon potentially incriminating evidence.
Authorities learned Fulmore made a “straw purchase” of a 9 mm handgun, under another person’s name, that matched the caliber of the weapon used in the Trenton murder, Boyle said.
While the handgun is of the same caliber used to kill Hughey, it is not clear at this point whether it is the same handgun used to execute the woman inside her home, Boyle said.
Bucks County prosecutors took a statement from the person whose name Fulmore allegedly used to legally purchase the weapon. The witness told authorities they did not buy the gun, Boyle said.
An investigation is ongoing and charges are expected against Fulmore, Boyle said.
Bucks County prosecutors deferred to Mercer County prosecutors for comment on the handgun case against Fulmore, who does not appear to have any convictions in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.
This isn’t Fulmore’s first brush with Pennsylvania authorities.
According to published reports, Fulmore was one of four New Jersey men charged in a two-state, onenight armed robbery spree.
The four men allegedly robbed seven people in Morrisville, then crossed the Delaware River and continued their gunpoint robbery spree in Trenton, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
One robbery victim had a handgun pointed at his head. The victim was told not to move because the suspects wouldn’t hesitate to blast him because “we’re from Trenton,” the newspaper reported in 2013.
Fulmore was accused of acting as a lookout, while his cousin was the alleged getaway driver, the paper said. The status of the case was not clear.
In Trenton, Fulmore was arrested and charged in August with simple assault, a disorderly persons offense, which is pending.
Hughey’s murder was the 17th of the year for the capital city, which has been wracked by gun violence that has claimed the lives of many city youth.
City officials held a news conference last week, promising to take drastic measures after four city residents under 21 lost their lives in bloody 10-day span this month, most recently the murder of 19-year-old Lance Beckett.
In what officials contend has become a disturbingly frequent trend of young people wrapped up in violence, 18-year-old Quashawn Emanuel and an unidentified 17-yearold Trenton resident were rung up for slaying of Beckett, who was apparently stomped out after being shot.
Earlier this year, prosecutors charged a 17-yearold boy with the murder of 16-year-old Ciony Kirkman. The boy’s name has not been released by prosecutors. They were supposed to waive the juvenile up as an adult months ago.
The Trentonian requested the boy’s name and bail information, but had not received the information by 4 p.m. Monday.
After putting in place a controversial curfew that sent youth caught out after ours to churches, officials proposed others measures to combat the apparent rise of the city’s young offenders.
They included lighting up crime hotspots and hiring truancy officers.
A child advocacy group has pointed to chronic absence as a major problem in the capital city, which has one of the worst absenteeism rates in the state.
“We can’t live in a city where the leading cause of death among AfricanAmerican males between 18 and 25 is homicide,” Acting Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said. “The truancy problem in the city is outlandish and it needs to be corrected.”
The death of Hughey, who also went online by the name Jordan Camilia Siaz, was but another example of the carnage in Trenton.
In August, Siaz posted a picture on Facebook of herself and a male — possibly her boyfriend — holding guns.
“They think we sweet,” she wrote. “I told em let’s play. I love daddy cuz he kno IMAride so he gonna ride back.”
Neighbors suggested Hughey was pregnant, but authorities contend an autopsy showed that wasn’t the case.
The Trentonian requested the woman’s autopsy under the state’s Open Public Records Act but was denied because of the ongoing murder investigation.
The Trentonian has received past autopsy reports through OPRA.
DeBlasio said she “verified the information” with the medical examiner that Hughey was not with child.