48°
Kader Mustafa, of Mercer County, will not become eligible for parole before reaching the age of 104, under the provisions of New Jersey’s No Early Release Act and the terms set down Monday, May 2 by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Vincent N. Falcetano, Jr.
Shortly before 11:45 p.m. on May 3, 2018, Freehold Township police responded to a 9-1-1 call originating from a vehicle stopped along Route 33 West near the exit ramp for Halls Mill Road. Officers found three occupants of the vehicle, a 1997 Mazda Protégé: 24-year-old Sciasia Calhoun, who had sustained a single gunshot wound to the head, and her boyfriend and 1-year-old daughter, both of whom were not physically harmed.
Calhoun was rushed by Freehold First Aid, with the assistance of Monmouth- Ocean Hospital Service Corporation, to nearby CentraState Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead approximately one hour later, according to Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey.
An intensive joint investigation by the MCPO Major Crimes Bureau and the Freehold Township Police Department, with significant assistance from the Manalapan Police Department, revealed that Mustafa was driving a 2005 Chevrolet Impala when he fired a single shot at Calhoun, after several minutes of following her vehicle, at one point even colliding with its rear bumper.
While recounting the facts of the case on Monday, Judge Falcetano noted that Sciasia and her loved ones were en route to Asbury Park on the night of the shooting when they realized that their vehicle’s headlights weren’t operational – only the high beams were working. They had already turned around and were heading back home when they encountered Mustafa. “Her last act,” Falcetano said, was to somehow safely pull over the vehicle to the side of the road, despite having been shot by a man he described as a “cauldron of rage” who was “marauding … aimlessly” that night, while armed.
“This was completely random,” Falcetano said. “I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to describe it.”
Click here to follow Daily Voice Ocean and receive free news updates.
