A little over a year after the deadly New Jersey shooting of 19-year-old Aaliyah Eubanks in Bridgeton, police have arrested a person on murder charges. More suspects are sought in the case.
35-year-old Donavan E. Watts was arrested on May 17 and charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, the Bridgeton Police Department announced Monday. Watts was being held in the Atlantic County jail.
Eubanks, whose son was 1 at the time of her murder, was shot to death in her apartment in Burlington Manor in the early morning of March 16, 2019. Authorities said last April that they were seeking information on three people seen entering the apartment shortly before 3 a.m. and then fleeing after gunshots rang out, officials have said.
An account of what happened inside the apartment came from a young girl who was staying at Eubanks’ apartment that night, her mother, Jennifer Williams-Crosell.
Williams-Crosell said the three men tied up both women and then dragged Eubanks to another part of the apartment where they beat her and eventually shot her at least six times.
She said police told her they believe her daughter knew her attackers and they targeted her, but she doesn’t know why. She said her daughter didn’t have drugs, money or even anything of value in her apartment that anyone would want to steal.
A gun recovered by divers from Union Lake in Millville last summer was linked to the case, investigators said.
No arrests related to the case were made until Watts’ arrest last week and more could be coming soon, police said.
“Authorities are confident that Watts did not act alone in this homicide,” the department said. “Additional persons of interest have been identified as a result of this investigation.”
Police asked anyone with information about Eubanks’ death to contact Detective Edward Stockbridge of the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office at 856-453-0486 or Sgt. Dan Bagley of the Bridgeton Police Department at 856-451-0033.
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