Jury deliberations entered a third day today in the murder trial of a Newark man charged with participating in the brutal beating of a man who was later dumped behind in North Bergen gas station beneath a mattress weighed down with cinder blocks on Dec. 31, 2012.
JERSEY CITY -- Jury deliberations entered a third day today in the murder trial of a Newark resident charged with participating in the fatal beating of a man who was later dumped behind in North Bergen gas station in later 2012.
Mark Browne is charged with murdering Darryl Williams, who prosecutors say was beaten with a table leg before being left for dead behind the gas station on Tonnelle Avenue near Route 3 on Dec. 31, 2012. The jury began deliberating on Thursday around 3 p.m.
Browne was one of six people arrested and charged in connection with the fatal attack. Daeshawn Jennings was sentenced to 18 years in state prison for aggravated manslaughter, while Kathleen Jones was sentenced to 12 years in prison in July after pleading guilty to the same charges.
Also charged in Williams' death are Qudeera Adams, Nydia Mozee, and Latoya Mozee, all of Newark. Latoya Mozee pleaded guilty to endangering an injured victim and Nydia Mozee pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, according to the transcripts of the plea hearings. Adams awaits trial.
Adams testified during the trial that the day before the incident, Williams' girlfriend showed up wearing heavy makeup and had bruises. She said that when Browne heard about it, "he said he was going to knock (Darryl Williams) out and teach him not to hit girls."
Adams said they drove in Browne's Cadillac Escalade to the apartment Latoya Mozee and Williams shared. She said when she got to the bedroom, Jennings was beating Williams with the table leg, while the Mozee sisters and Jones were in the room. According to Adams, Browne was egging them on to beat Williams as he was shooting him with a BB gun. She said Williams was "screaming and yelling and squirming all over," and that Browne put a pillowcase over his head to keep him quiet.
Browne was telling everyone to "stomp on him," and Jones was jumping on Williams' head. The beating did not stop until Williams stopped moving, according to the cooperating witness.
Browne used duct tape to gag Williams and used a belt, tape and wire to tie his arms behind his back. They wrapped Williams in a blanket and Jennings and Browne carried him out and placed him in Browne's Escalade, the cooperating witness testified.
Adams said Browne drove all of them to a location she was not familiar with and Browne and Jennings carried Williams out before they drove away. She said their next stop was to a Pathmark where Latoya Mozee and Browne bought cleaning products. Adams identified the pair on video from the supermarket shown by the prosecutor. Adams said she and Latoya Mozee scrubbed the bloody apartment.
Under cross examination by defense attorney Benjamin Morton, Adams admitted that in her first interview with homicide detectives she lied, saying she had an alibi and was with her sister at the time. She then admitted she lied in a subsequent interview, saying she could remember nothing because she had been high, was drinking and had taken Xanax.
With injuries including stab wounds to the head, Williams managed to crawl out from under the mattress and some 20 or 30 feet toward Tonnelle but as the pillowcase over his head became more and more blood-soaked, he suffocated, a medical examiner testified.
Browne faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.