Make Newark Clean
08-24-2007, 12:00 PM
It was difficult enough to look upon my mother's dead body when she passed seven years ago. I cannot imagine being called upon to identify the murdered/mutiliated remains of a son or daughter. Gut wrenching.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Tragedy and shock unite 3 grieving Newark families (http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1187931669223980.xml&coll=1)
BY BRAD PARKS AND JONATHAN SCHUPPE
Star-Ledger Staff
The knock on Jaymee Wade's door came early that Sunday, Aug. 5, around 8:30 a.m.
Two plainclothes Newark detectives asked her if she could go to the medical examiner's office downtown to identify a body that was possibly a male relative. They told her she needed someone to accompany her, in accordance with a state policy.
Wade's first thought was that she'd like to be joined by her nephew, Dashon Harvey. She helped raise him and they always treated each other like mother and son. Whatever bad news she was about to receive, it would be better if he was there.
"I told the detectives, 'Let me see if my nephew is downstairs,'" Wade said, referring to the couch in the basement of her Newark home where he often liked to sleep when he was home from college. "I just knew he was downstairs in that basement."
Except he wasn't. Then she went upstairs to the spare bedroom. He wasn't there, either. That's when, panicked, she called Dashon's father, James Harvey.
"She called me hysterical and I thought it was something with her mother," said James Harvey, who lives not far away. "It never dawned on me it would be my son."
Similar phone calls were being made around Newark that morning among the families of Dashon, Terrance Aeriel and Iofemi Hightower, the three victims of the Mount Vernon School slayings in Newark. The families' account of those notifications -- and the days that followed -- offers a glimpse into their grief since that morning.
Shalga Hightower got her call at work. She began her workday at 6 a.m. at Brighton Gardens Senior Living Facility in West Orange, and that's where police found her roughly 2 1/2 hours later.
"They told me they needed to go down to the medical examiner's office, that they needed me to identify a female body, that there was a tragedy," Shalga said.
She called her sister, Kimberly Hightower, to join her.
"We were just hoping maybe it was a mistake," Kimberly said. "Maybe they didn't mean to call us."
Renee Tucker, the mother of Terrance Aeriel and his sister, Natasha -- the lone survivor of the attacks -- was notified by Detectives Lydell James of the Newark Police Department homicide squad and Kevin Green of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office detective squad.
The detectives told her something may have happened to her children but that they couldn't say more if she was alone. She immediately called a friend. Then, James said, she began cleaning her house.
"She was in shock," James said. "I had to tell her to please sit down."
By roughly 9 a.m., the families had been assembled in a small waiting room in the Regional Medical Examiner's Office on Norfolk Street in Newark. None of them realized what was happening, or that their loved ones had been killed together.
One by one, they were invited into another room to view a picture so they could make an ID.
Shalga Hightower couldn't do it. She sent in Kimberly.
Tucker didn't want to go in either, but she had no choice -- there was no one else who could make sure it was her son, T.J.
James Harvey wanted to do it himself. And now part of him wishes he hadn't.
"That picture is stuck in my mind," Harvey said. "I want to be thinking of him alive and happy and instead all I can see is that picture of him lying on that table, one eye opened, one eye closed. When I wake up in the middle of the night now, that's what I'm seeing."
As the families returned to the waiting room, they soon realized they were not only dealing with a private hell. This was a larger tragedy. Shalga Hightower and Tucker, whose daughters were best friends, recognized each other.
"The families just started talking and piecing together the puzzle of what happened," James Harvey said. "It didn't take us long to figure out they were all together."
Tucker began speaking with the Harvey family.
"Miss Tucker told us, 'If your son was hanging out with my son, he must have been a good kid,'" said Dorothy Harvey, Dashon's grandmother. "She told us her son was a preacher."
Shalga Hightower said that, for her, everything that happened Sunday after the identification was "a blur." Her next memory comes from Monday, when Natasha Aeriel -- who by now was helping investigators solve the crime -- asked to see her.
"She basically kept telling me how sorry she was for me and how she loved me and she knew how close me and (Iofemi) were and she was worried about me," Hightower said. "There she was, lying in a hospital bed, having lost her brother, and she wanted to comfort me."
James Harvey spent Monday making phone calls -- to the bank, to close out Dashon's account; to the student loan company to which Dashon owed $40,000; to Delaware State University, to withdraw Dashon as a student.
That afternoon, he and his family went to pick out a suit for Dashon's funeral.
"I couldn't believe I was picking out a suit for his funeral instead of his college graduation," Harvey said.
He also became consumed with getting his son's body released from the medical examiner's office.
"I didn't want my son sitting butt-naked in a cold morgue," Harvey said. "I wanted to get him to a place where he could be clothed and bathed. I just wanted to feel like I was taking care of him."
By Tuesday, Harvey got his wish. His son's body was taken to the Cotton Funeral Home, where James Harvey found himself alone with his son for the first time since the murder.
"I spoke to him for 15 minutes," Harvey said. "I said, 'I love you, son. I would have never thought this would happen to you. I would love for the shoe to be on the other foot and have me lying there and you looking down at me.'
"I told him, 'Your death will not be in vain. We're going to catch who did this. Natasha Aeriel is going to help us solve this case.'"
© 2007 The Star Ledger
© 2007 NJ.com (http://www.nj.com) All Rights Reserved.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Tragedy and shock unite 3 grieving Newark families (http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1187931669223980.xml&coll=1)
BY BRAD PARKS AND JONATHAN SCHUPPE
Star-Ledger Staff
The knock on Jaymee Wade's door came early that Sunday, Aug. 5, around 8:30 a.m.
Two plainclothes Newark detectives asked her if she could go to the medical examiner's office downtown to identify a body that was possibly a male relative. They told her she needed someone to accompany her, in accordance with a state policy.
Wade's first thought was that she'd like to be joined by her nephew, Dashon Harvey. She helped raise him and they always treated each other like mother and son. Whatever bad news she was about to receive, it would be better if he was there.
"I told the detectives, 'Let me see if my nephew is downstairs,'" Wade said, referring to the couch in the basement of her Newark home where he often liked to sleep when he was home from college. "I just knew he was downstairs in that basement."
Except he wasn't. Then she went upstairs to the spare bedroom. He wasn't there, either. That's when, panicked, she called Dashon's father, James Harvey.
"She called me hysterical and I thought it was something with her mother," said James Harvey, who lives not far away. "It never dawned on me it would be my son."
Similar phone calls were being made around Newark that morning among the families of Dashon, Terrance Aeriel and Iofemi Hightower, the three victims of the Mount Vernon School slayings in Newark. The families' account of those notifications -- and the days that followed -- offers a glimpse into their grief since that morning.
Shalga Hightower got her call at work. She began her workday at 6 a.m. at Brighton Gardens Senior Living Facility in West Orange, and that's where police found her roughly 2 1/2 hours later.
"They told me they needed to go down to the medical examiner's office, that they needed me to identify a female body, that there was a tragedy," Shalga said.
She called her sister, Kimberly Hightower, to join her.
"We were just hoping maybe it was a mistake," Kimberly said. "Maybe they didn't mean to call us."
Renee Tucker, the mother of Terrance Aeriel and his sister, Natasha -- the lone survivor of the attacks -- was notified by Detectives Lydell James of the Newark Police Department homicide squad and Kevin Green of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office detective squad.
The detectives told her something may have happened to her children but that they couldn't say more if she was alone. She immediately called a friend. Then, James said, she began cleaning her house.
"She was in shock," James said. "I had to tell her to please sit down."
By roughly 9 a.m., the families had been assembled in a small waiting room in the Regional Medical Examiner's Office on Norfolk Street in Newark. None of them realized what was happening, or that their loved ones had been killed together.
One by one, they were invited into another room to view a picture so they could make an ID.
Shalga Hightower couldn't do it. She sent in Kimberly.
Tucker didn't want to go in either, but she had no choice -- there was no one else who could make sure it was her son, T.J.
James Harvey wanted to do it himself. And now part of him wishes he hadn't.
"That picture is stuck in my mind," Harvey said. "I want to be thinking of him alive and happy and instead all I can see is that picture of him lying on that table, one eye opened, one eye closed. When I wake up in the middle of the night now, that's what I'm seeing."
As the families returned to the waiting room, they soon realized they were not only dealing with a private hell. This was a larger tragedy. Shalga Hightower and Tucker, whose daughters were best friends, recognized each other.
"The families just started talking and piecing together the puzzle of what happened," James Harvey said. "It didn't take us long to figure out they were all together."
Tucker began speaking with the Harvey family.
"Miss Tucker told us, 'If your son was hanging out with my son, he must have been a good kid,'" said Dorothy Harvey, Dashon's grandmother. "She told us her son was a preacher."
Shalga Hightower said that, for her, everything that happened Sunday after the identification was "a blur." Her next memory comes from Monday, when Natasha Aeriel -- who by now was helping investigators solve the crime -- asked to see her.
"She basically kept telling me how sorry she was for me and how she loved me and she knew how close me and (Iofemi) were and she was worried about me," Hightower said. "There she was, lying in a hospital bed, having lost her brother, and she wanted to comfort me."
James Harvey spent Monday making phone calls -- to the bank, to close out Dashon's account; to the student loan company to which Dashon owed $40,000; to Delaware State University, to withdraw Dashon as a student.
That afternoon, he and his family went to pick out a suit for Dashon's funeral.
"I couldn't believe I was picking out a suit for his funeral instead of his college graduation," Harvey said.
He also became consumed with getting his son's body released from the medical examiner's office.
"I didn't want my son sitting butt-naked in a cold morgue," Harvey said. "I wanted to get him to a place where he could be clothed and bathed. I just wanted to feel like I was taking care of him."
By Tuesday, Harvey got his wish. His son's body was taken to the Cotton Funeral Home, where James Harvey found himself alone with his son for the first time since the murder.
"I spoke to him for 15 minutes," Harvey said. "I said, 'I love you, son. I would have never thought this would happen to you. I would love for the shoe to be on the other foot and have me lying there and you looking down at me.'
"I told him, 'Your death will not be in vain. We're going to catch who did this. Natasha Aeriel is going to help us solve this case.'"
© 2007 The Star Ledger
© 2007 NJ.com (http://www.nj.com) All Rights Reserved.