Boy, 15, Charged with Murders in Newark

A 15-year-old New Jersey boy was charged on Tuesday with the murders of two teenagers who were among five people shot and killed around Newark on Christmas Day, the Essex County prosecutor’s office said.

{snip} He was charged with two counts of murder and a count of attempted murder of a third shooting victim.

The deaths drove the total number of killings in Newark this year over 100, and provoked fresh concerns over public safety amid surging crime rates in the city of fewer than 300,000 people.

The two teenagers, Zainee Hailey, 13, and Kasson Mormon, 15, were shot and killed on the 100 block of Schley Street in Newark at about 10 p.m. on Dec. 25, the statement said. A 14-year-old who was wounded in the shooting remains hospitalized in serious condition, the statement said.

The prosecutor’s office gave no information about a possible motive. The Star-Ledger, citing anonymous sources, reported that a dispute between the shooter and one of the male victims over a girl might have led to the shooting.

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On the same day the teenagers were killed, three men were fatally shot and two were wounded outside Slick’s Go-Go Bar, a strip club in Irvington, a suburb near Newark. On Tuesday, prosecutors said a Newark resident named Anthony Fields, 19, was charged with those shootings. {snip}

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