EAST ORANGE - Law enforcement officials, as of deadline, are still looking for a city resident who they say assisted an already arraigned suspect accused of killing a Seton Hall University student and wounding four other house party attendees here Sept. 25.

After announcing the arrest of Nicholas Welch on Sept. 27 in East Orange, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino said, during a Sept. 29 press conference in Newark, that authorities were working with every applicable law enforcement agency in locating and apprehending a man identified as Marcus Bascus. Later that day, Bascus was apprehended and taken into custody without incident at 316 North Empire Court in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania by officers for the United State Marshals Services, Essex County Prosecutor's Office and the East Orange Police.

Laurino said that Bascus, 19, provided the handgun that Welch fired five shots into a South Clinton Street apartment with early Sept. 25.

Saleem Wright, 24, of Irvington was arrested today and has been charged with death by auto, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and endangering an injured victim in connection with the death of 5-year-old Julianne Vega.

Wright surrendered at approximately 2:30 p.m. to Rev. Ron Christian at Christian Love Baptist Church in Irvington. The surrender was coordinated by the suspect's attorney, Gerald Saluti, and the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

Detectives from the Prosecutor's Homicide Squad placed the suspect in custody at the church and transported him to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, where he was booked.

 

DNA testing has confirmed that the infant found on the bank of the Raritan River on April 24 is Zara Malani-Lin Abdur-Raheem, who had been missing since Feb. 16, when her biological father allegedly threw her from the Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway.

DNA testing on the body of the infant conducted by the State Police Forensic Science Laboratory has resulted in a positive identification of the infant as Zara Malani-Lin Abdur-Raheem, according to Attorney General Paula T. Dow.

 

April 25 - Due to the recent shooting of Swamaiya White, which resulted in the loss of the teenager's life, the City of Orange Township stepped up security in an attempt to make residents feel safer and to apprehend the criminal responsible for the heinous crime. Consequently, Friday night (April 23) at approximately 7:05 p.m., Orange police arrested Eric Brown, 19 in the location of the killing at 559 Argyle Avenue.