AG to investigate why suspects in killings were free
by Claire Heininger and William Kleinknecht
Monday August 13, 2007, 10:22 PM
New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram will investigate why two suspects charged with murder in the Aug. 4 killings of three college students in a Newark schoolyard were free at the time of the slayings despite pending criminal charges in other cases, the leader of the state senate said today.
As authorities continued to mount an intense manhunt for the three suspects who remain at large, Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) said Milgram had agreed to his request for the probe. He said Milgram will examine the cases of Jose Lachira Carranza, who had been charged with assault and child rape before he was arrested in the schoolyard killings last week, and Rodolfo Godinez, who was previously arrested on robbery and assault charges but remains at large in the execution-style slayings.
"We need to put an end to this culture once and for all," Codey said in a statement. "...If this is true, someone clearly dropped the ball here, and now three good kids are gone and another is seriously wounded."
Killed in the attack behind Mount Vernon School were Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20, and Iofemi Hightower, 20. Aeriel's 19-year-old sister, Natasha, was shot to the head but survived and has been helping investigators.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/08/newark_murder_suspect_in_court.html