Some people don’t deserve nice things, and that is especially true for a New Jersey man who allegedly committed a murder just two days after being granted early release from prison due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Jerry Crawford was freed from South Woods State Prison on November 4th, where he was serving time for burglary. Authorities let him out on “public health emergency credits,” which have been used in several cases to send inmates home to slow the spread of coronavirus in prisons. The 25-year-old was to serve the remainder of his sentence on supervised parole.
Just two days after being released, Crawford and another man, 23-year-old Yusuf Waites, allegedly killed 18-year-old Davion Scarbrough in Bridgeton on November 6th. His body was found with multiple gunshot wounds shortly after he was seen on surveillance footage from an apartment complex with the two men.
Since December, Crawford has been in jail on gun and theft charges, accused of stealing a car involved in a crash that same month. However, those charges have since been dropped, as he and Waites were hit with first-degree murder and first-degree conspiracy to commit murder charges last month stemming from Scarbrough’s slaying.
Crawford’s lawyer, Al Wheeler, maintains that his client was only a passenger in the vehicle and says no evidence suggests he had a gun or participated in the killing.
