Posted on 01/28/2005 5:41:03 AM PST by Pharmboy
Police Charge Staten Island Man, 19, With Murdering Actress
By MICHAEL WILSON
he police said today that they had charged a 19-year-old Staten Island man with murder in the street killing of a New York actress early Thursday.
Two youths with him were charged in an earlier robbery attempt in the same Lower East Side area where the woman was killed, officials said, and two other youths were questioned but not charged after telling detectives that they had had no idea that their companion would pull the trigger on the actress, Nicole duFresne, 28.
The police recovered what they believed was the .357 Magnum pistol used to kill Ms. duFresne on Clinton Street, near Rivington Street. They said they had found it at a Manhattan apartment where the man charged with her murder, Rudy Fleming of Staten Island, has been staying with relatives.
Ms. duFresne, 28, who lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, left a Lower East Side bar with her fiancé and another couple sometime after 3 a.m. Thursday and the four were soon confronted by a group of would-be robbers.
The women were walking arm in arm a few steps behind their boyfriends when they were set upon, according to the woman with Ms. duFresne, Mary Jane Gibson, 29. Ms. duFresne's boyfriend, Jeffrey Sparks, was pistol-whipped and someone made a grab for her purse, Ms. Gibson said.
Ms. duFresne responded by challenging, "What are you going to do, shoot us?" according to interviews with her friends. The gunman then fired one bullet into her chest and fled with his companions. Ms. duFresne was pronounced dead later that morning.
Snip
The ages of the youths either questioned or charged range from 15 to 19, and they hail variously from Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island, Commissioner Kelly said at a news conference. Asked whether there had been a confession, Mr. Kelly said, "Some statements have been made."
Snip
Earlier, the police made public a surveillance videotape of seven people who they said might have been involved in the killing and in the earlier attack. The video, taken 10 minutes before Ms. duFresne's killing, was made by a restaurant camera at Norfolk and Rivington Streets, about two blocks away. The man seen in the video wearing a white scarf is Mr. Fleming, the police said.
You should post that in a new thread.
Naw, I don't like showing off. It's on the front page of the Times...
NYPD, the best police force in America.
Thank God I was right---get this POS off the street.
Hey, gloat away. Happy to be wrong. Glad the dude is off the street.
Noticed the shooter was from Brooklyn.
Wrong. Staten Island. Wonder if he's from the infamous New Brighton Houses.
Yeah, the Staten Island thing threw me. Staten Island?
The north shore has some really bad nabes. Wu-Tang is from around there.
Impressed with how NYPD broke the case.
Yeah, I know, but it's....Staten Island.
I really thought it was a gang thing. Now, it looks like it was two incredibly dumb groups of people who just happened to run into each other at 3 in the morning. What are the odds? (don't answer that).
The moral of this story is alcohol and attitude don't mix.
If it wasn't so tragic, Letterman would be doing a Top Ten Things NOT to Say To Muggers...
The boyfriends' behavior was straight out of Goofus and Gallant.
"Gallant stands beside his fiancee while Goofus saunters off with his pal, leaving the chicks behind."
Fry the perp.
You talk to them to get them relaxed, to not be trigger happy, to not pull the trigger out of fear or impulse.
That might save your life.
Then kill them.
Why are murderers and robbers usually referred to as "youths" in the NY media. What about "thugs" "killers" "armed robbers" etc. or does the leftist media there reserve these terms for people like Goetz.
The police recovered what they believed was the .357 Magnum pistol used to kill Ms. duFresne
And yet another triumph for the "reasonable restrictions" on guns that NYC inflicts on its residents.
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