By Mike Newall
Philadelphia Inquirer
ATLANTA COUNTY, N.J. — Thirty years ago, Lorenzo Carter was a suspected Jamaican drug smuggler carving out turf in Atlantic City during the Wild West days at the start of the town’s casino era.
One spring morning in 1980, say police, Carter walked up to a green Cadillac idling at a rundown intersection and opened fire with a handgun, killing a passenger also believed to be in the drug game.
Despite a warrant for Carter’s arrest, the case file sat for decades, collecting dust in a cabinet at the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office.
In January, a new countywide cold-case unit, working in conjunction with U.S. marshals, took a second look at the case and what is believed to be the oldest homicide warrant in Atlantic County, authorities said.
On Monday morning, marshals tracked Carter, now 53, to an apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was handcuffed after fleeing across rooftops in his pajama bottoms.
Interviews with investigators involved with the case provide a glimpse into Atlantic City’s criminal past and New Jersey’s recent efforts to apprehend fugitives, which authorities say took more than 3,000 violent offenders off the streets in 2009.
“We’re committed and unified in going after the worst of the worst,” said James Plousis, the U.S. marshal for the District of New Jersey, “no matter how long they’ve been running.”
The call came in around 10 o’clock on the morning of March 29, 1980, remembered James Barber, 69, a retired police detective, who at the time was in charge of the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office homicide unit.
Everton Kelly, 26, and John Sessoms, 39, had been riddled with bullets as they sat in a car in front of a sandwich shop near Delaware and Atlantic Avenues in the city’s Inlet section.
“It was a low-rent spot,” Barber said, “a residential neighborhood on the way down.”
The intersection - the current site of empty lots, a Baptist church, and a Showboat casino employee-parking garage - also contained some old rooming houses, Barber recalled.
Kelly died of his wounds at the hospital.
A few blocks away from the shooting, detectives found a car containing marijuana and cash and tracked it to Carter, who they believed was involved with a Jamaican drug gang that smuggled pot and cocaine into Philadelphia International Airport inside “fancy-smelling soap boxes,” Barber said.
The shooting was gang-related, authorities theorized. They searched Carter’s known addresses and hiding spots.
But the Jamaicans weren’t the only ones killing each other as Atlantic City transformed into a gambling mecca.
Detectives were juggling four high-profile, mob-related murders at the time, Barber said. Among them were the Nicky Scarfo-ordered killings of Municipal Court Judge Edwin Helfant and mob associate Vincent Falcone.
With Carter believed to have fled the country, the Kelly slaying investigation stalled.
Investigators would pick up the case from time to time, Barber said, but they didn’t have the tools that are available today.
“We worked it the best we could,” he said.
Last month, Sgt. James Sharkey, in charge of Atlantic County’s new cold-case unit, was reviewing 30 stale investigations when he saw the Carter file. It deserved a fresh look, he said, and he now had the resources.
He handed it over to Detective Doug Herbert, a 19-year veteran of the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office, who was assigned five years ago to the U.S. marshals’ New York-New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force.
Created in 2003 through the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000, the task force uses local and federal law enforcement to pursue fugitives.
Working alongside officers such as Herbert, federal marshals provide manpower and technology. Their presence allows other officers to concentrate on crime prevention and investigation - or even to revisit decades-old cases such as the one involving Carter.
“We’re a force-multiplier,” explained Bill Plitt, chief inspector of the regional force. “We bring experience and extra tools to the table, and we concentrate on one thing: catching violent offenders.”
The marshals have nearly a hundred task forces across the country, sharing resources and information, he said.
New Jersey has five such forces - with nearly 100 full-time fugitive-hunters - working in Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Secaucus, and Trenton.
Statewide, they arrested 3,365 suspects last year, Plousis said.
They’ve also helped local law enforcement catch fugitives who have fled their jurisdictions, Sharkey said.
Using the marshals’ databases and technology, Herbert and other task-force members tracked Carter to Tempe, Ariz., where he had been arrested in 2008 on marijuana-trafficking charges.
Carter fled Tempe before his trial, but Herbert was able to compare his ‘70s-era New Jersey identification card to his Arizona mug shot.
Carter’s thick Afro was gone, and his face was lined, but the photos were a match, according to authorities.
“It was a big moment,” Herbert said.
Next, Herbert traced Carter to the Brooklyn address. Shortly after dawn Monday, six marshals surrounded a rowhouse where Carter had been staying on the second floor.
Seeing the police, the suspect climbed onto the roof and took off running.
The marshals chased Carter to a nearby garage. He was barefoot and out of breath. He looked surprised, according to one marshal.
The longtime fugitive now sits in a Manhattan jail cell, awaiting extradition to Atlantic County, where he will face murder charges.
“We have reviewed the file,” said Atlantic County Prosecutor Theodore Housel, “and we believe . . . we will be able to successfully prosecute him.”
Copyright 2010 Philadelphia Inquirer