Shalga Hightower (center), mother of Iofemi Hightower, held a picture of her daughter as a jury announced the conviction of Rodolfo Godinez in the slayings of three people in Newark.
(John O’Boyle, Pool/ Associated Press)
Man convicted in schoolyard slayings in N.J.
Shalga Hightower (center), mother of Iofemi Hightower, held a picture of her daughter as a jury announced the conviction of Rodolfo Godinez in the slayings of three people in Newark.
(John O’Boyle, Pool/ Associated Press)
NEWARK — The first defendant to be tried for a triple schoolyard killing that jolted New Jersey’s largest city into addressing its crime problem nearly three years ago was convicted on all counts yesterday.
Rodolfo Godinez, a Nicaraguan who was one of six men and boys charged with the brutal slayings, was convicted on all 17 counts. A jury returned the verdict in state Superior Court after nearly four hours of deliberations.
The killings of Dashon Harvey, Iofemi Hightower, and Terrance Aeriel spurred a wave of anticrime measures in Newark, from jump-starting a surveillance camera project to expanding access to gun-trace data.
A fourth victim survived and testified against Godinez. She is not being identified by the Associated Press because of sexual assault charges against two other defendants. All four victims were enrolled or about to be enrolled at Delaware State University.
Family members of the victims wept and rubbed one another’s backs quietly as the verdict was read. Earlier, when it was announced the jury had reached a verdict, several of them gasped and started clapping. The judge warned the gallery to stay calm once the verdict was read.
“When I first found out my son was attacked and killed in a schoolyard playground, I blamed it on the parents’’ who don’t teach children right from wrong, said Dashon Harvey’s father, James Harvey.
“When you let them run astray, these are the types of things that can happen to any child,’’ he said.
The three victims were found slumped against a wall of the playground, each having suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Hightower and the survivor also were slashed with a machete.
Godinez’s attorney, Roy Greenman, had argued his client was at the scene but didn’t take part in the attacks. Godinez will be sentenced July 8 and could spend the rest of his life in prison.
The six defendants in the case are being tried separately.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
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