4 charged in murder of ex-basketball player
TRENTON >> Four men have been charged in the 2018 shooting death of a Hamilton high school basketball player, authorities said.
Breon Phelps, 21, Isaac Fisher, 21, both of Trenton, and Justin Malkin, 21, of Hamilton, are charged with murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses.
The name of a fourth suspect, 19, who was underaged at the time of the slaying, hasn’t been released.
Prosecutors said they plan to waive the man up to face the same charges as the three co-conspirators.
Phelps is locked up at the Mercer County jail, while Fisher and Malkin are lodged at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility on unrelated charges, prosecutors said.
Malkin is serving time for weapons and theft convictions while Fisher is doing a bid for robbery and burglary, according to state records.
Prosecutors didn’t say Monday what the motive was behind the May 30, 2018 killing, which happened on the 900 block of East State Street after midnight.
Authorities encountered a gruesome scene: An Audi belonging to Fowler’s friend, Treyvion Laws, riddled with more than 20 bullet holes and the 19-year-old Fowler, a former Nottingham High School baller, shot in the head.
Fowler died at a local hospital, while another 16-year-old survived being shot in the leg.
“That was my boy since the sandbox,” Laws, who commissioned a life-sized memorial banner from a Morrisville artist to pay tribute to his slain friend, told The Trentonian during an interview in 2018.
The friends went shopping hours before Fowler was gunned down, Laws said.
Police sources who spoke on condition of anonymity at the time suggested that Fowler was an unintended target and the gunmen were after Laws.
“Wrong time, wrong place,” Laws told The Trentonian in 2018, adding he wasn’t around when the shooting happened. “He just wanted to sit down and charge his phone inside the car.”