Girl, 17, charged in killing of Camden 13-year-old
A 17-year-old girl was charged Wednesday with the murder of 13-year-old Nathaniel Plummer, who was gunned down on a Camden street earlier this month.
A 17-year-old girl was charged Wednesday with the murder of 13-year-old Nathaniel Plummer, who was gunned down on a Camden street earlier this month.
The girl, whom authorities did not name because she is a juvenile, is also charged in the nonfatal shooting of a 19-year-old man in Camden in October, just blocks from where Plummer was killed.
Ballistics evidence linked the girl to both shootings, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. Sources with knowledge of the investigation said she is also a suspect in additional violent crimes.
The girl has been in custody since the morning of Jan. 9, when she turned herself in to police to face attempted-murder charges in the October shooting. Police, who were searching for her since October, quickly identified her as the suspect also in Plummer's killing.
Plummer, who attended Octavius V. Catto Community School, was the city's youngest homicide victim in years, and the first of 2016. He was killed around 11:15 p.m. Jan. 8, near his grandmother's East Camden home. Authorities said 911 calls and the ShotSpotter activation system alerted them to the shooting near Beacon and Line Streets.
Plummer's mother, Taisha Mercado, has said her son was troubled in the months before his death. His father was arrested on federal drug charges in September, which she said was devastating to Plummer.
He started running away and spending time with friends she didn't approve of, she said, became withdrawn, and got caught driving a stolen car. Someone fired bullets into their home in December, but she said her son wouldn't discuss it with her.
Mercado has said she was in the process of arranging counseling for her son, as well as getting the family moved out of Camden. She has since talked with Camden school officials about trying to find faster ways of helping young people in crisis.
Mercado declined to comment Wednesday, but posted on Facebook about the arrest.
"Some [people] asked how I can be so strong through all this, I tell them my strength comes [from] the Lord," she wrote. "Justice has been served!!!!"
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