A witness in the oldest Mercer County murder trial received phone calls and threatening notes, prosecutors said
TRENTON -- A long-standing murder trial in Mercer County has been pushed back once again after a witness in the case received calls from the accused killers and found threatening notes at his home, Mercer County prosecutors said Wednesday.
A jury had already been selected and opening statements were set to begin this week in the trial for accused killers Mack Edwards, Phobus Sullivan and Danuweli Keller. The men are accused of kidnapping and robbing one man in 2010 and kidnapping and killing another in 2011.
From top left, Phobus E. Sullivan, 27, Abdutawab Kiazolu, 22, Danuweli Keller, 23, and Mack W. Edwards, 25, all of Trenton have been charged in the slaying of a U.S. Army veteran from Liberia. (photos, Mercer County Prosecutor's Office) However, on Tuesday, prosecutors and defense attorneys convened in Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier's courtroom and decided to adjourn the trial for five months - until February - because a witness in the case was unreachable.
Prosecutors said that before the witness became unavailable, he had received calls from Keller just before the trial's start date.
In one of those calls, Keller put Edwards on the phone, Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Grillo said, adding that the calls weren't threatening in nature.
But it didn't stop at the calls - the witness started finding notes at his home, which were threatening and contained language similar to that used in the calls, Grillo said.
All three men awaiting a trial are being held at the Mercer County jail, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors are arguing that the notes and the phone calls are linked, and are accusing the defendants of witness tampering in the case.
Jury selection begins in oldest Mercer murder trial
It's the latest setback in the case, which Billmeier once called one of the oldest in Mercer County.
Edwards, Sullivan and Keller are on trial for two violent incidents.
Prosecutors have said the first came in 2010 when the men kidnapped Alfonso Slaughter, held him in the basement of a Monmouth Street house and robbed him before Slaughter was able to escape.
Months later, in January of 2011, prosecutors have said the three men, along with a fourth accomplice, Abdutawab Kiazolu, kidnapped army veteran and Liberian immigrant Dardar Paye, 33, of Maplewood and held him in the same basement before shooting him to death.
Dardar Paye fought for the U.S. military in the 1990s, serving tours in Iraq and Kosovo. He also served in the New Jersey National Guard. He was found dead in Trenton in 2011. Police discovered the men after trying to stop a car driven by Sullivan with Edwards as a passenger. The car stop turned into a pursuit and when police finally caught up with the car, they found Paye's body in the trunk, prosecutors have said.
Officers also stopped a van that they believe to be connected to the car Sullivan was driving, and found Keller and Kiazolu inside, prosecutors have said.
Paye received public attention in 2010 for his legal battle against deportation, which was chronicled in a Star-Ledger newspaper story.
All four men were indicted on counts of murder, felony murder and weapons charges. A fifth man, William Daquan Brown, was indicted on felony murder charges in connection with the incident. Police have said Brown was present for the kidnap and robbery of Paye but not the killing.
Kiazolu and Brown have been severed from the court proceedings, since they are accused only of being involved with Paye's kidnapping and not Slaughter's. Their cases are being handled separately.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman.