In series of raids, task force catches up to pair of brothers outside Washington
BY JONATHAN SCHUPPE AND JEFF WHELAN
Newark Star-Ledger
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NEWARK, N.J. — After two weeks of furious searching, authorities on the trail of a “principal player” in the Aug. 4 Newark schoolyard slayings stormed a squalid apartment outside Washington early yesterday and found their man.
 Newark Mayor Cory Booker, right, stands with Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy as they listen to a question at a news conference in Newark, N.J., Thursday, Aug. 9. (AP Photo/Mike Derer) |
Rodolfo Godinez, 24, a Nicaraguan immigrant, was hiding inside the Oxon Hill, Md., apartment, which was strewn with clothing and crowded with day laborers when authorities arrived at 1 a.m. and placed him under arrest, police said.
Within an hour, a separate team of investigators about 20 miles away arrested Godinez’s 16-year-old half-brother in Woodbridge, Va. The brother, identified by the U.S. Marshals Service as Alexander Alfaro, had been hiding in a ground-floor apartment, according to Robert Fernandez, commander of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force.
The brothers, who had been in the D.C. area for about a week, were apparently planning to escape to El Salvador, authorities said.
The arrests marked two crucial steps forward in a sweeping two-week investigation into the execution-style killings that drew national attention and shook Newark, which for years has grappled with violent crime.
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“This was just a heinous manifestation of evil by these individuals,” Newark Mayor Cory Booker said during an afternoon press conference.
Five suspects are now in custody, and authorities continue to search for at least one more juvenile. Booker would not say whether additional suspects were being sought.
Investigators worked frantically to apprehend Godinez and Alfaro before they left the United States. Investigators had received a tip that the duo were planning to meet in Virginia and head to Texas, Mexico and finally El Salvador. Some of the investigators had not slept for more than two days before raiding the apartments, authorities said.
“They just didn’t let up,” David Turner, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said.
Godinez, a legal resident of the United States, was charged with three counts of murder, four counts of robbery, one count of attempted murder, two weapons offenses and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery. His brother was charged with similar crimes.
The Newark killings occurred just before midnight Aug. 4, as four friends -- Dashon Harvey, 20, Iofemi Hightower, 20, Terrance Aeriel, 18, and his sister Natasha Aeriel, 19 -- were talking and listening to music in a parking lot behind the Mount Vernon School in the city’s Ivy Hill neighborhood.
Investigators say Godinez and Alfaro were among a group of men and teenagers who drifted into the schoolyard a few at a time, then forced the victims against a wall. Terrance Aeriel, Harvey and Hightower were each fatally shot in the back of the head.
Natasha Aeriel, who was also shot in the head, survived and remains hospitalized. She has been vital in helping investigators identify the suspects, authorities said.
José Lachira Carranza, 28, and two teenagers have been in custody in connection with the shootings behind the Mount Vernon School. Carranza, being held on $1million bail, is in the country illegally. A 15-year-old Morristown boy and a 15-year-old Newark boy also are being held. The Star-Ledger has withheld their identities because they have not been named by authorities.
“We will not rest until we come to a point where we know we have all those individuals involved apprehended,” Booker said at yesterday’s new conference.
Authorities launched a massive manhunt for Godinez Aug. 10, when detectives obtained a warrant for his arrest.
A task force that included U.S. marshals, FBI agents and investigators from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and the Newark Police Department cast a dragnet stretching from New Jersey to Florida. They began zeroing in on the D.C. area after landing a tip Thursday.
Authorities headed to a Woodbridge neighborhood in Virginia, believing the brothers were hiding with a group of young men there, Inspector Osmund Tan of the U.S. Marshals Service’s Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force said yesterday.
When the men pulled away in two cars, the investigators followed, Tan said, unaware that Alfaro was hiding out in a nearby apartment.
The driver of one of the cars matched the description of the suspect, Tan said. When the investigators stopped the car about a half-mile away and questioned the occupants, they discovered they didn’t have either of their men.
Authorities received another tip at 11:40 p.m. Friday about two men at Bongo’s, a Woodbridge restaurant. They tracked the men down, only to discover they had struck out again.
“We almost lost hope,” Tan said. “Until we got that final tip.”
That tip came at about 12:30 a.m. yesterday and sent investigators to the Riverside Plaza Apartments in Oxon Hill, about 20 miles north of Woodbridge.
A “friendly neighbor” pointed to the apartment -- Unit 102, a ground-floor unit -- where Godinez was hiding, Tan said.
About nine law enforcement agents knocked on the apartment door and it swung open, Tan said.
The three-bedroom apartment was littered with clothing and mattresses and crowded with about 10 men, Tan said. The living room was bereft of furniture, save for a tattered couch and a milk crate holding a television. A needle gun lay near a man with a half-finished tattoo on his arm, Fernandez said.
Godinez was hiding in a back bedroom, wearing jeans, sneakers and a button-down shirt, Tan said.
“He looked like he was ready to go,” Tan said.
The suspect cowered as the agents approached. “Please don’t hurt me,” Godinez said, according to Tan.
After spending hours studying Godinez’s picture, the marshals knew this time they had the right person, Tan said.
“It’s finally over,” Tan remembered thinking to himself.
About 45 minutes later, a different group of law enforcement agents arrested Alfaro in Woodbridge. Neighbors said about 20 armed officers in riot gear quickly and quietly hauled away the suspect without incident from a condominium development called Rippon Landing.
MEASURE OF RELIEF
Godinez was brought to the Prince George’s County Correctional Center shortly after noon, said Vicki Duncan, a spokeswoman for the facility. He was being held on $1million bail in a maximum-security unit where inmates are locked in for 23 hours each day, she said.
Godinez was scheduled for a 10 a.m. extradition-waiver hearing this morning, Duncan said.
Alfaro was being held in a juvenile facility in Prince William County, Va.
“We are anxious to go get them,” Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said yesterday.
James Harvey, Dashon Harvey’s father, praised the work of federal, state and local authorities.
“It makes me sleep a little better at night,” he said. “It sends a message that once you do something like this, you can’t run.”
Dorothy Harvey said the captures bring a small measure of relief but leave her aching for her grandson Dashon.
“He’s still dead. ... But I’m glad they are off the street and not hurting anyone else.”
At one time or another, all five of the suspects in custody lived near the crime scene at the Ivy Hill Park apartments, a massive 10-building complex that is home to 10,000 people on the western tip of Newark. Residents recalled that Carranza, Godinez and the teenagers drank beer, smoked marijuana and sometimes mugged passers-by in the hallways of the 14-story towers.
Residents have speculated the suspects are tied to MS-13, a Central American gang with a strong presence in Washington and a growing foothold in Ivy Hill Park. Investigators from the Newark Police Department and Essex County Prosecutor’s Office have said repeatedly, however, the slayings were not gang-related.
Newark Councilman Ronald C. Rice, who represents the West Ward, said the area breathed a sigh of relief at the news.
“In my community, this is bringing us to the healing process,” he said. “The capture of these people is allowing us to exhale. I’m as happy as you can be in this situation.”
The ages of the younger suspects are still sending shock waves through the community, Rice said.
“You’ve got these older men leading younger men down the same path of destruction that they are on,” Rice said. “We need to give them as many positive choices as negative choices.”
Authorities, meanwhile, vowed to continue their round-the-clock hunt for any remaining suspects.
“This investigation does not end today,” said Carolyn Murray, Essex County first assistant prosecutor. “We will go where the evidence leads us.”
Staff writers Joe Ryan, Tom Feeney, Jeffery C. Mays, Brad Parks and Leslie Kwoh contributed to this report.
© 2007 The Star Ledger