Morristown resident Shahid Baskerville, 20, pleaded guilty on Friday to reduced charges in the 2007 execution-style shootings of four college-age friends in a Newark schoolyard.
Baskerville is likely to be sentenced to 30 years in jail in exchange for testifying against two other alleged assailants. Three others, alleged to be part of the MS-13 Central American gang, have received multiple life sentences for an attack that included two handguns, a machete and a steak knife. Two men and a woman were killed in a crime that shocked the country.
Baskerville, 20, of Morristown, admitted he and Jose Carranza — the oldest defendant whose trial starts Jan. 10 — sexually assaulted the lone surviving victim, Natasha Aeriel, and that Carranza slashed her neck with a steak knife as she shouted in pain.
“She said stop. She was crying,” Baskerville told the judge matter-of-factly.
Murder and attempted murder charges were dropped against Baskerville, who pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit robbery, robbery and aggravated sexual contact, reports the paper. Sentencing is scheduled for March.
