Lahmier Hill, (left) and Sadiq Palmer (right) are charged in the July 10 murder of Mikal Muhammed on River Street. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
At least five shooting incidents. Three people dead. Multiple victims injured, including one left paralyzed.
And still, despite “years of bloodshed and loss” in an ongoing feud between two families in and around Red Bank, a State Superior Court judge said, “cooler heads have not prevailed.”
Instead, the pattern of violence erupted again most recently in a July 10 double shooting on River Street that took the life of Mikal Muhammed, a 36-year-old father and music producer who split his time between Red Bank and California.
Details continue to emerge in what prosecutors call a carefully planned, “cold-blooded execution,” and the latest in a violent conflict between two families and their associates that’s been going on for more than a decade. Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Mike Luciano likened the combatants to the Hatfields and the McCoys.
“This was an execution,” Luciano said of the latest shooting. “Plain and simple.”
The crime scene on River Street July 10. (Photos by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
The description of the tit-for-tat pattern of violence came in a series of recent court hearings for three suspects in the killing of Muhammed, struck down in an early morning hail of bullets on a River Street sidewalk shortly after 3 a.m. on July 10.
Lahmier Hill, 31, a three-time convicted criminal, and his brother Sadiq Palmer, 25, a former college football star with a previously spotless record, are charged with first-degree murder in the killing. They face life in prison if convicted. The pair are due back in court for a hearing Thursday.
Also charged with first-degree murder is Simone Moultrie, 53, of Red Bank (pictured below) who prosecutors say acted as a spotter for the two alleged gunmen, phoning Hill dozens of times in the hours before the shooting to alert them of the victims’ whereabouts. A fourth suspect, Ticco Griffin of Red Bank, has been charged with hindering.
Hill, Palmer and Moultrie have been ordered held behind bars until trial by Superior Court Judge Jill G. O’Malley, who lamented the pattern of violence laid out by prosecutors in testimony and evidence submitted in the case.
The long history of retaliation between the two groups, she said, factored in her decision to deny bail.
“It is obvious that this feud has led to extreme violence. It is also obvious that this feud is ripe for retribution and retaliation,’’ O’Malley said. “It is abundantly clear that despite years of bloodshed and loss, cooler heads have not prevailed. Wiser people have not stepped in. Each act of violence only appears to have fueled the flames.”
It is feud that has sparked round after round of neighborhood fear and which police say accounts for a large majority of the gun violence in the borough for more than a decade.
Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Mike Luciano described a series of connected incidents that began with the still-unsolved murder of Shapell Kendrick, found dead at a home at 97 West Sunset Avenue on November 11, 2012.
Kendrick was identified as a cousin of Rasheem Palmer, the father of Sadiq Palmer, charged in the most recent killing, Luciano said. Rasheem Palmer was also identified in previous court testimony as the brother of Anthony Sims, who went to prison for shooting two brothers near Montgomery Terrace in 2007.
Rasheem Palmer was interviewed in the Kendrick killing, Luciano said, and described to police a fallout with “the Veneys.” Palmer himself was later murdered in Eatontown in July, 2015. Perry Veney was one of two people charged in the Palmer killing, but not before he himself was shot by Sims (who had just been released on from prison for the 2007 shooting) 15 times and injured on Willow Street in 2014.
Perry Veney, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in the Palmer killing, was released from prison last March, NJ Department of Corrections records show. Sims remains in prison despite appeals that have gone up to the State Supreme Court. Leon Veney was shot in on West Sunset Avenue in 2014 and paralyzed by Inow Rainey of Eatontown who pleaded guilty to the crime. The Veneys are also family members of Mikal Muhammed, victim in the July 14 shooting Luciano said.
It was this fray that Sadiq Palmer, who saw his father murdered as his senior year at Red Bank Regional began, entered upon returning to Monmouth County after a successful four-year football career at the University of Massachusetts.
“Whatever made him take the wrong turn, I believe it to be this familial battle, this Hatfield and McCoys, I can’t think of any other way to describe it between these two families,” Luciano said during Palmer’s November 13 detention hearing.
“It took someone with no criminal history to get to the point where ‘I’m going to go, I’m going to stalk, I’m going to track, and I’m going to execute somebody,” Luciano added.
Luciano pointed to what prosecutors say is voluminous surveillance video and cellphone data that will prove Palmer and Hill set out to kill Muhammad on the nine-year-anniversary of the murder of Palmer’s father.
Luciano said the pair wore masks to hide their identity as they walked toward River Street and shot Muhammed and the other victim with separate guns of .9 mm and .40 caliber. The other victim, Josiah Stepney, was shot in the leg and survived, police said.
Muhammed (pictured below) was related to the Veney family members involved in earlier shootings, but Luciano said Muhammed himself “had no involvement in this feud.”
“In this ongoing Hatfield and McCoy rivalry, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Luciano said. “He’s pointed out by Ms. Moultrie, and he’s gunned down by Hill and Palmer.”
Hill and Palmer were captured on video running from the scene and entering Palmer’s black Honda on West Sunset Avenue, Luciano testified. The car is then seen moving along local roads and the men, hiding their faces but with tattoos visible on camera, are seen entering the Panamerican motel in Eatontown.
“This video is solid,’’ Luciano said. “It is extensive, it is solid, it is from multiple sources.”
Hill and Palmer have pleaded not guilty, with their attorneys arguing no weapon or other physical evidence has been found tying them the crime. The video footage is unclear at best, and never shows them at the crime scene, they added.
“Identification is exactly the issue in this case,” said Hill’s attorney, Mark Anthony Bailey.
There is, however, another piece of evidence Luciano described: an Instagram video he said was posted by Sadiq Palmer following the shooting referring to his father, Rasheem Palmer, killed on the same date nine years earlier. “R.I.P. Joker,” Luciano said, adding Joker was the late Palmer’s street name. “We know what we doing fool, with three check marks and the date 7/10.”
Other social media posts in the days after the shooting hint at both the human toll and the persistence of the feud.
Muhammed’s mother expressed grief at the loss of her son, prompting a long string of comments from friends and family expressing condolences and prayers at her unimaginable pain.
One commenter on Facebook, however, vowed revenge.
“Somebody gone die,’’ reads post from an account that appears to have since been deleted. “Imma spin til someone feel it.”
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
