A 28-year-old Virginia guy was once charged with homicide on Tuesday in the deadly taking pictures of a New Jersey councilwoman, Eunice Dwumfour, in February, the government stated. Evidence exposed by means of investigators indicated that the 2 knew every different, officers stated.
The guy, Rashid Ali Bynum, of Portsmouth, Va., was once taken into custody in Chesapeake City, Va., Tuesday morning and was once anticipating extradition, Yolanda Ciccone, the Middlesex County, N.J., prosecutor stated at a news convention. Mr. Bynum was once charged with first-degree homicide and two guns counts, Ms. Ciccone stated. It was once no longer transparent whether or not he had a attorney.
Ms. Dwumfour, 30, had a host related to Mr. Bynum indexed in her cell phone contacts as “FCF,” an abbreviation for Fire Congress Fellowship, consistent with Ms. Ciccone. Mr. Bynum, Ms. Ciccone stated, was once a member of the fellowship, which is affiliated with Ms. Dwumfour’s church, Champions Royal Assembly in Newark, an offshoot of a megachurch based in Nigeria.
Federal tax filings describe Fire Congress Fellowship as a Bible find out about crew, determine Ms. Dwumfour as its longtime treasurer and record its place of job at an deal with in Parlin, an unincorporated phase of Sayreville, N.J., that may be a two-minute power from the place the deadly taking pictures befell.
Ms. Ciccone didn’t be offering a reason for the killing. She stated the investigation was once proceeding and declined to take questions. She was once joined on the news convention by means of different police officers; Ms. Dwumfour’s father and sister; and a minister from Ms. Dwumfour’s oldsters’ church.
John Wisniewski, a attorney for Ms. Dwumfour’s circle of relatives, stated they had been “relieved to know that somebody was being charged and going to be held accountable.” But as a result of they didn’t know the rest about Mr. Bynum or what may have motivated him, they’d a host of questions, he stated.
“They’re really struggling with the why,” Mr. Wisniewski stated.
Ms. Dwumfour was once shot whilst she was once in her automobile out of doors the complicated of condominium constructions and duplexes the place she lived in Parlin simply ahead of 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 1, the government stated.
The automobile rolled down a steep incline ahead of crashing into two vehicles on the backside of the hill, the police stated. Officers responding to reviews of a taking pictures discovered Ms. Dwumfour with a number of gunshot wounds, and she or he was once pronounced useless on the scene, the government stated.
At the news convention, Ms. Ciccone described some of the proof that resulted in Mr. Bynum’s arrest, together with safety video from the homicide scene, location information from his cell phone and digital toll information that traced his course from Virginia to New Jersey and again.
Kennedy O’Brien, a former longtime Sayreville mayor, stated the situation laid out by means of the government indicated that the killing was once an “assassination of a young woman who had an 11-year-old daughter” who she was once elevating on her personal.
“I pray to God that she is going to be OK,” Mr. O’Brien stated of Ms. Dwumfour’s daughter.
Ms Dwumfour’s circle of relatives is from Ghana. She was once married remaining yr to a pace-setter of her church, Champions Royal Assembly, a congregation based totally in Nigeria, consistent with messages she and her husband, Eze Kings, posted on Facebook.
Ms. Dwumfour graduated from Newark public colleges and won a bachelor’s diploma in ladies’s research from William Paterson University of New Jersey in 2017. Her occupation incorporated jobs as a trade analyst {and professional} scrum grasp, a kind of venture supervisor, consistent with a ConnectedIn profile that was once energetic on the time of her dying.
A Republican, Ms. Dwumfour was once in her first three-year time period as a Sayreville councilwoman on the time of her dying, having narrowly defeated an incumbent Democrat to win her seat in 2021. She was once the primary Black particular person ever elected to place of job in Sayreville.
In a remark about her marketing campaign posted on the Sayreville Republican Party’s website, she stated she cherished the borough, which has a inhabitants of about 45,000 and is set 30 miles south of Manhattan in Middlesex County, and sought after to assist fortify the lives of its citizens.
“I am fully dedicated to building a better, stronger Sayreville,” she wrote. “And with your support, we can create a brighter future for our wonderful town.”