About four months ago, a man was arrested for the mysterious killing of a New Jersey councilwoman.
Eunice Dwumfour made history when in 2021, she became the first black woman ever elected to city council in Sayreville, New Jersey. Unfortunately, just two years later, she was gunned down outside her home in a shooting that remained unsolved for months.
However, on Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors announced they had finally arrested a suspect in the case, who was identified as Rashid Ali Bynum, 28, of Portsmouth, Virginia.
Bynum was taken into custody without incident outside a home in nearby Chesapeake City, Virginia. He will be extradited back to New Jersey, where he will face charges of first-degree murder and possession of a handgun for unlawful purpose.
This was a very complex, extensive case with painstaking police work,’ Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone said at a press conference.
In February, the shooter fired 12 rounds into Dwumfour’s car in broad daylight, several of which hit her.
Several witnesses in the neighborhood saw the shooting, and one was able to get a good look at the shooter. They described him as a ‘thin black male,’ with ‘ear-length braids or dreads,’ Ciccone said.
Investigators were able to identify Bynum after they tracked a mobile phone traveling across state lines. Surveillance video and witness statements matched Bynum to a white car that travelled back and forth between Virginia and New Jersey that same day.
But the shooter’s motive remains unclear, frustrating Dwumfour’s friends and family. John Wisniewski, an attorney representing Dwumfour’s family, said there were ‘even more questions today than there were before.’
‘A search of the victim’s phone revealed Bynum as a contact, with the acronym FCF,’ Ciccone said. ‘FCF is believed to be an acronym for the Fire Congress Fellowship, a church the victim was previously affiliated with, which is also associated with the Champions Royal Assembly – the victim’s church at the time of her death.’
A search of Bynum’s phone revealed that on the day of the murder, he searched the internet for more information about the church. He also searched for information about what magazines were compatible with his handguns, Ciccone said.
Investigators also said that Dwumfour and Bynum also attended the same bible study class, which is hosted in a storefront on Broad Street in Newark.
‘The fact that it was connected to that component of her life is even more saddening to me because you look to God for light and protection,’ former Sayreville Mayor Victoria Kilpatrick said. ‘So to know that that was the connection hurts, but at the same time, evil can lurk anywhere.’
Dwumfour was a 30-year-old mother of an 11-year-old daughter. She had recently married Peter Ezechukwu, a Nigerian pastor affiliated with her church in the country’s capital of Abuja.
