A jury in Essex County has convicted a man for the 2016 stabbing deaths of two children and a college student after he saw a comment about himself on Facebook, according to prosecutors.
31-year-old Jeremy Arrington was convicted after a 10-day trial on 28 charges, including three counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, burglary, criminal restraint and weapons charges, according to Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens, II.
8-year-old Aerial Little Whitehurst and 11-year-old Al-Jahon Whitehurst were stabbed to death in November 2016, in their home in the 100 block of Hedden Terrace in Newark, authorities said. A third victim, 23-year-old Syasia McBurroughs was shot to death.
Prosecutors said Arrington broke into the Whitehurst home armed with a loaded firearm and tied up the people inside the apartment.
“The proofs revealed Arrington (then) proceeded to torture them by stabbing them with kitchen knives,” Stephens said in a statement.
“The attack was apparently prompted by a comment on Facebook,” Stephens said.
At a 2016 press conference announcing Arrington’s arrest, prosecutors said that Arrington had been a suspect in an earlier shooting and sexual assault. One of the stabbing victims had reposted an alert on Facebook, which motivated Arrington to attack six people in the home, prosecutors said.
The children were taken to University Hospital in Newark, where they were pronounced dead. McBurroughs died at the scene.
Three others – a 29-year-old woman and 13-year-old twins – were stabbed but survived the attack, authorities said.
“Police were able to respond before more lives were lost as a result of young girl with autism who escaped and called for help from her phone in a closet,” Stephens said.
Arrington fled before police arrived but was arrested later after a brief standoff at a home on Pomona Avenue, authorities said.
“We are forever grateful to the courageous survivors and witnesses who testified as well as the investigative personnel who helped bring this defendant to justice,” Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Justin Edwab said in a statement.
Arrington faces life in prison when he is sentenced on April 8, Stephens said.
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