24-year-old Nicaraguan national with rap sheet wanted in killings


Sunday, August 12, 2007
BY JONATHAN SCHUPPE AND MARK DiIONNO


Star-Ledger Staff

On the same day Newark buried three victims of the Aug. 4 schoolyard slayings, authorities yesterday identified a 24-year-old Nicaraguan national with a record of robbery, assault and weapons arrests as a "principal player" in the execution-style attack.

Rodolfo Godinez, who lives in the city's Ivy Hill neighborhood where the killings occurred, has been the subject of an intense manhunt since Friday, when detectives obtained an arrest warrant charging him with murder, robbery and weapons offenses, authorities said.



Godinez, who also goes by the name Rodolfo Gomez, is the fourth suspect identified in the killings and remained at large last night. Investigators yesterday were continuing to search for him as well as two other suspects -- Godinez's 16-year-old brother and another boy, according to two law enforcement sources who asked not to be identified because they are not allowed to speak publicly about the case.

Three people are already under arrest: José Lachira Carranza of Orange, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant from Peru; and two juveniles: a 15-year-old boy from Newark, a cousin to Godinez, and a 15-year-old boy from Morristown. Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow has said she expects the other suspects will be arrested by the end of this week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement records indicated Godinez may also be in the country illegally. Rodolfo Antonio Godinez Gomez entered the U.S. from Nicaragua on Oct. 24, 1992. He was ordered deported on May 5, 1993, but it isn't clear if he ever left the country, according to Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontura.

"It seems to me that he was illegal," he said.

Authorities released Godinez's name and photograph yesterday morning, at the same time funeral services were being held for Dashon Harvey, 20; Terrance Aeriel, 18; and Iofemi Hightower, 20. Aeriel's sister, 19-year-old Natasha, was shot in the head, but survived. She remained hospitalized yesterday, but has been helping investigators identify the attackers.

All four victims were preparing to attend Delaware State University this fall and dozens of students from the college attended yesterday's services.

Mayor Cory Booker, Police Director Garry McCarthy and Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow, all of whom attended the funerals, held an impromptu news conference at Branch Brook Park in Newark after Harvey's funeral, the morning's first. They said they interrupted their schedule to ask for the public's assistance in tracking down Godinez.

"Obviously, our focus is on the three funerals, but we broke away because we need the public's help," Booker said. "We're going to find (Godinez), we're going to find all of them and bring them to justice."


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Authorities continue to offer a $150,000 reward for information leading to the killers' arrest and inditcment. The case was also featured on Fox television's America's Most Wanted (www.amw.com).

McCarthy called Godinez a "principal player" in the attack, which occurred last Saturday night as the four friends were hanging out behind the Mount Vernon School. The attackers announced a robbery, shot Natasha Aeriel, then marched the others to a wall, where each of them was shot once in the back of the head.


Hightower also had knife wounds to her face and arm, which authorities say may have been inflicted by a machete.

Godinez was first arrested as a juvenile on June 21, 1999, in South Orange for robbery that was downgraded to theft for which he got 18 months probation. In September 2002, he was arrested in Irvington for aggravated assault, robbery and weapons possession. He was indicted but its not clear what happened after that. In April 2003, he was arrested for robbery in Newark which was downgraded to theft and got 18 months probation, Essex County records show.

Authorities have been arresting and identifying the alleged attackers since getting their first big break in the case: lifting a fingerprint from a Colt 45 beer bottle that was left at the crime scene.

They matched the print to Carranza, whom Natasha Aeriel identified in a photo array from her hospital bed. While searching for Carranza, they came across the 15-year-old Newark boy, who admitted his role in the crime and named other accomplices, the law enforcement sources said.

Near Godinez's home on Midland Avenue yesterday, neighbors said it was not uncommon to see him sitting on the stoop of the pale red brick house where he rented a second-floor apartment for $975 per month with his mother, Gloria.

He would sit with friends, hanging out, smoking cigarettes, they said. But since the shootings the group has been out of sight. Officers, however, have made several visits to the property over the last several days.



Staff writer Katie Wang contributed to this report.


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