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Cathy Rainey (left) with a 2006 photo of Iofemi Hightower and Terrance Aeriel who were murdered in New Jersey last month. Iofemi’s mother, Shalga Hightower, is at right. A friend of one of the victims told the Blade the slain friends had planned to attend a Pride event in New York. (Photo by Mel Evans/AP)
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO J COMMENTS
 
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victims were upstanding citizens who never had any run-ins with the law. Three were students at Delaware State University and one, Hightower, had planned to begin classes there this fall.
The friend of the student who spoke with the Blade, a 20-year-old Newark resident, said at least one of the victims was openly gay and all the others had gay friends and were known to hang out in “gay circles” at their high schools before going on to college.
The friend declined to disclose his name, saying he is concerned about possible negative consequences of speaking out openly about the sexual orientation of the deceased students.
He was put in touch with the Blade by Newark gay and AIDS activist Alex Williams, who manages a Newark drop-in center for young gay men sponsored by the Northern Jersey Community Research Initiative. The Initiative receives city, state and federal funding to carry out HIV-prevention programs, Williams said.
The friend of the murder victims, who said he is also gay, is a client at the Initiative, Williams and the student said.
He told the Blade that one of the victims, Terrance “TJ” Aeriel, 18, and one of the youths arrested in the case, Melvin Jovel, 18, each attended Newark’s West Side High School. He said it’s possible Jovel, who was a member of the school’s soccer team, recognized Aeriel during the fateful encounter in the Mount Vernon schoolyard on the night of the murders.
“A couple of other friends were talking and they think he had classes with TJ,” the friend said of Jovel. He said friends think the two might have been in the same Spanish class.
In addition to Jovel, who is a resident of Elizabeth, N.J., the others arrested and charged in the murders were Jose Carranza, 28, of Orange, N.J., Rodolfo Godinbez, 24, who was arrested in Prince George’s County, Md., and Alexander Alfaro, 16, who was arrested in Woodbridge, Va. Two others charged in the case, both 15, were not identified.
All four victims were close friends. The four were hanging out at the schoolyard on the night of the murders, as they often did, authorities said, because it was known as a gathering place for young people.
Police have said Natasha Aeriel told investigators that two of the six suspects were present on the school grounds when the four students arrived. Police said the other suspects arrived a short time later, a development that prompted the students to become worried and decide to leave. It was at that time that the suspects attacked the students, police said.
But police have declined to provide further details, other than to say that at least one of the suspects separated Natasha Aeriel from the others and shot her in the head, leaving her for dead.
The Newark Star-Ledger reported police sources as saying the other three students were led down some steps to a wall beneath a set of bleachers.
Authorities have said each of the three suspects has been linked to a l
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