The person accused of killing a New Jersey councilwoman proper outdoors her residence as her household was ready inside was discovered responsible of homicide and different prices, in response to the county prosecutor’s workplace.
Rashid Bynum was convicted of first-degree homicide in addition to second-degree weapon possession prices within the 2023 taking pictures dying of Sayreville Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Workplace stated.
Bynum’s sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 18.
Dwumfour, who served on the Sayreville Borough Council for ab out a 12 months, was gunned down on Feb. 1, 2023. Bynum wasn’t tracked down till Could 30, almost 4 months after the lethal taking pictures.
Investigators stated Bynum had recognized Dwumfour, nevertheless it was not clear how properly the 2 knew one another. The one connection between the 2 police have is that the suspect was linked to the church Dwumfour attended.
Investigators traced Bynum’s travels from his cellphone and car location knowledge from the night time of the killing, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone stated after the arrest was made, citing surveillance video and E-ZPass data. He additionally matched the outline of the gunman given by neighbors in Sayreville.
Bynum was taken into custody outdoors a residence in Chesapeake, Virginia, with out incident. Lawyer info was not clear for Bynum.
In accordance with a household legal professional, neither Dwumfour’s mother and father nor sibling acknowledged the identify or image of the suspect. Dwumfour, who grew up in Newark, did reside in Virginia at one level, and household lawyer John Wisniewski stated Bynum had beforehand lived in Sayreville. However past that, he didn’t know the character of their relationship and the prosecutor declined to debate a doable motive.
Dwumfour was a pastor in a prosperity gospel church, Champions Royal Meeting, that’s based mostly in Nigeria, and she or he acquired married there in Nov. 2022 to a fellow pastor from Abuja. She was additionally an officer of a associated entity, the Hearth Congress Fellowship, that has a department in Virginia. Bynum was listed in her cellphone contacts underneath that group’s acronym.
“A search of the victim’s phone revealed Bynum as a contact with the acronym FCF,” stated Ciccone.
Court docket data and tax filings counsel that church funds within the U.S. had been tight. Dwumfour had been named in a collection of landlord-tenant disputes in Newark relationship from 2017 to 2020 involving the fellowship, which had seen its revenue drop from about $250,000 in 2017 to only $350 in 2020.
By the months earlier than the arrest was made, the councilwomen’s relations expressed their frustration. Dwumfour’s daughter described what she heard simply outdoors her window the night time of the taking pictures, because the household was ready inside for the mom to complete parking her car.
“We’re waiting for my mom to look for a parking space, and then she was taking a lot of time so we started calling her over and over again, but it wouldn’t pick up. And then we heard gunshots and we started calling the police,” Nicole Teliano informed the AP.
“It’s so painful. It’s so painful. Every day by day, we think about her. We cry, I cry every day by day,” her husband, Peter Ezechukwu, beforehand stated.
Dwumfour, a Republican, was elected to her first three-year time period in 2021, when she ousted a Democratic incumbent. Colleagues recalled her as a soft-spoken religious Christian who may keep her composure in contentious conditions.
A heart-felt plea for justice from the household of the councilwoman killed in New Jersey. Brian Thompson studies.
Related Press reporter Maryclaire Dale contributed to this report.
