Eight Teens Charged in Camden Torture Killings; More Arrests Expected (With Audio)
Martin Di Caro Reporting
Eight teenagers, including four juveniles, the youngest a fourteen-year-old girl, have been charged in the brutal slayings of a young couple who were found buried in the yard of a Camden home late last month. According to published reports, the killings of Muriah Huff, 18, and her boyfriend Michael Hawkins, 23, were an act of revenge by the Bloods street gang. The news reports said Hawkins was a member of the Crips. One of the alleged killers exchanged gun fire with a Crips gang members two weeks before.
A spokesman at the Camden County Prosecutor's Office would not confirm or deny the gang link Tuesday, but did describe the utter brutality of the killings.
"One of the victims, we know that it took several hours for him to die," said spokesman John Laughlin. "He was beaten, he was stabbed, he was shot. He was tortured. She suffered similarly. Ultimately the cause of death was beating and strangulation, very brutal in both cases."
Laughlin said more suspects are being sought because at least ten people were involved in the murders. He said others helped in the attempt to cover up the crime by ripping up carpets and destroy the victims' clothes at the Camden home where they were killed and buried.
"It was brutal," he said.
On Tuesday two of the adults charged with murder were arraigned and ordered held on $1 million bail, Darrel Pierre, 19, of Merchantville and Clive Hinds, 18, of Maple Shade. Laughlin said the prosecutor's office will determine whether to charge the juveniles as adults.
While the involvement of such young people, including a fourteen-year-old girl, in a reported gang-related killing may seem stunning, gang specialists say it is the norm in New Jersey. Street gangs are recruiting younger members looking for attachment.
"Younger kids emulating their older siblings and you also have kids in that age group second-generation gang members depending on their age of their parents and when their parents might have joined," said State Police Detective Jay Mandziuk of the street gang-north unit.
Det. Mandziuk agreed to discuss trends in gang recruitment generally but not the ongoing investigation in Camden in which the State Police is not participating.
"Everyone wants to belong to something. What's popular now is not to go to school. What's popular now is to be part of a gang," said Det. Mandziuk, who said new, young gang members quickly learn the Bloods or the Crips isn't an after-school club.
"As a part of this culture I'm expected to perform to a certain standard, and that standard is violence. It's not to get good grades, they don't believe in that," he said.
The detective said gang recruiters are at work in some elementary schools not only in cities but suburbs, too.
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