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Man sought in slayings eluded cops for 4 years
Focus of intense search, fugitive remains at large
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
BY WILLIAM KLEINKNECHT AND MARY JO PATTERSON
Star-Ledger Staff
The 24-year-old being sought as a "principal player" in the schoolyard killings of three Newark college students was a fugitive on the night of the murders -- and has been since he jumped bail four years ago.

Rodolfo Godinez of Newark became a fugitive on July 7, 2003, after failing to appear in Superior Court on charges that he robbed and attacked three people in Irvington a year earlier, court records show.

But Essex County sheriff's officers did not find him and stopped looking in 2005, when a woman who answered his phone said he had left the country, Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said yesterday.

"We gave it four shots. We should have kept looking for him," but his department was undermanned and overwhelmed, Fontoura said. Essex County currently has 16,000 people with open warrants, and he has eight to 20 officers to track them at any given time, he said.

"If we arrested them all, where would we put them?" he said.

"They would all be (released on their own recognizance)," Fontoura said. "If we want to get serious about crime, we're going to have address that."

As of last night Godinez, the subject of an intense manhunt, was still at large. The search has expanded outside of New Jersey and includes Virginia, according to two law enforcement sources who asked not be identified because they are not allowed to speak publicly.

Police are also searching for his brother, 16, and another male teenager in the killings. All together, authorities say six individuals, including four juveniles, were involved in the Aug. 4 execution-style murders of Terrance Aeriel, 18; Dashon Harvey, 20; and Iofemi Hightower, 20. A companion, Natasha Aeriel, 19, was also shot in the head but survived.

Three of the six are in custody; three are at large.

Yesterday, a broader picture emerged of Godinez, who faces three counts of murder plus weapons and other charges. He arrived in the country in 1992 and obtained permanent legal residency in 2001.

As a child he learned to box at the age of 12 at Olympic Boxing, a club in the basement of one of the buildings at the Ivy Hill complex, said John "Papi" Rivas, the boxing teacher there.

"He had talent" but left for the streets after a year, participating in only two fights, he said.

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"Here I can control them, but in the street I can't control them," Rivas added, speaking in a combination of Spanish and English. "I take them bowling and fishing. It's like a family. He was part of the family, when he was young."

The alleged Irvington robbery, on Sept. 15, 2002, took place outside Eddy's Tavern on Myrtle Avenue, according to an Irvington police report. One victim was stabbed in the back, another was stabbed in the neck, the report states. There was also a third victim.

Godinez was indicted on charges of aggravated assault, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and weapons offenses. Within days Judge Paul Daniel of Central Judicial Processing Court in Newark set his bail at $50,000, which he posted by using a bail bondsman.

One month later Godinez was charged in an another robbery, but that case was downgraded to a disorderly persons offense and referred to a municipal court judge.

Godinez became a fugitive when he failed to appear before Superior Court Judge Garry Furnari on the Irvington indictment.

On the night of the schoolyard homicides, Godinez was believed living on Midland Place in Newark. Previously he had lived at the Ivy Hill Park apartments, near the scene of the killings.

Yesterday, a manager at the apartment complex said Godinez' mother, Gloria Gomez, and her two sons were thrown out of the Ivy Hill Park apartments in 2005.

Security officers at the complex found her younger son and some friends inside an empty apartment, damaging the premises, said Joe Catano, assistant administrator for the apartment. The son was charged with malicious mischief, Catano said.

Then managers found his mother living in a different unit, under someone else's name, Catano said.

"Both kids were nothing but trouble," Catano said of Godinez and his younger brother.

Gomez then moved to the second-floor apartment of a house on nearby Midland Place. The owner of that house, who refused to give his name, said she paid $975 a month in rent and was a good tenant.

In another development yesterday Jose Lachira Carranza, the other adult charged in the murders, appeared before Superior Court Judge Thomas Vena for a hearing on two previous criminal cases.

Carranza was already under indictment and free on $150,000 bail for allegedly raping a grade-school girl, and for using a chair and broken bottle to assault patrons in a bar fight. He turned himself in last week.

Vena revoked bail in both cases upon the request of Mark Ali and Christopher Iu, assistant Essex County prosecutors. Carranza's attorney, Felix Lopez-Montalvo, said he did not oppose the bail revocation since federal immigration authorities have placed a detainer on his client. Carranza, who is being held on $1 million bail in the murder case, is in the country illegally.

Vena scheduled another status conference for the two cases for Sept. 24.

In Morristown, meanwhile, the lawyer for a 15-year-old Morristown boy charged in the murders waived his client's appearance in court.

Patricia Kay entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, four counts of robbery and weapons offenses, said Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Thomas McTigue.

McTigue said it is likely his office will seek to have the teenager tried as an adult, as it has with a second teenager charged in the case.

Superior Court Judge John Dangler closed the hearing on the Morristown boy to the public. Afterward, McTigue said that was due in large part to safety concerns.

The teenager will remain in custody, and Dangler signed an order having his case transferred to Essex County. He is due again in court in Newark on Aug. 28.

State Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) yesterday said the fact that Godinez and Carranzo were allowed to remain free, despite pending charges, shows "(This) is a culture wherein crime is not taken ... seriously."

He asked for Attorney General Anne Milgram to investigate the circumstances, and she agreed.

"We're going to review why neither was in custody at the time of the murders," said her spokesman, David Wald.



Staff writers Kasi Addison, Kevin Dilworth, Margaret McHugh, Carly Rothman, Jonathan Schuppe and Katie Wang contributed to this report.