Asbury Park youth repeatedly shot victim in 2022 murder of Dariel Vernet, police said.
FREEHOLD — An Asbury Park juvenile, named with another teenager in a recent murder indictment, is identified in a police document as the person who repeatedly shot a 19-year-old man in a crime-ridden area of Asbury Park last year, killing him.
An affidavit of probable cause to charge the juvenile and his older codefendant with murder said the younger defendant, Joseph Argilagos, now 17, was pictured on surveillance video firing on Dariel Vernet "multiple times'' outside the Frederick Douglas apartment complex on Prospect Avenue about 5:45 p.m. on July 8, 2022.
Minutes earlier, Argilagos and his co-defendant, Lydell Brown, 19, of Asbury Park, were seen leaving the nearby Lincoln Village apartments on bicycles, heading toward the Frederick Douglas apartments as Vernet was heading that way on foot, the affidavit said.
The 19-year-old victim immediately fell to the ground, motionless, after Argilagos fired on him, the affidavit said.
After the shooting, Argilagos was depicted on surveillance video running across Langford Avenue, through the courtyard of the Lincoln Village complex and into an apartment building, from which he re-emerged less than five minutes later, wearing a change of clothes, the affidavit said.
Vernet, unresponsive and suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, was taken to Jersey Shore University Hospital in Neptune, where he was pronounced dead a little more than an hour after he was shot.
Argilagos and Brown both appeared at an arraignment Monday before Superior Court Judge Marc C. Lemieux, at which their attorneys entered not-guilty pleas to the murder charge on their behalf.
A hearing to determine if Argilagos would be held in jail without bail to await trial was scheduled for Monday, but it did not occur because the defendant's attorney, John Perrone, said his client consented to being detained.
Brown already was ordered held without bail to await trial, following his arrest in Toms River in May.
Argilagos was arrested shortly after the shooting and has been held in a juvenile detention facility since then. His identity only recently was made public after the state won a motion to prosecute him as an adult in the case, and a Monmouth County grand jury indicted the pair last month on murder and weapons charges.
LeMieux scheduled a conference for both defendants for Oct. 30 before Superior Court Judge Jill Grace O'Malley.
Vernet's killing is not the first time someone was fatally gunned down in the immediate vicinity.
Denzel Morgan-Hicks, 27, of Barnegat, a member of the Crips street gang, died in a hail of gunfire on Prospect Avenue, outside the Frederick Douglas apartments, amid a gang feud in 2017.
Reputed members of the Bloods street gang, Avery Hopes, 27, of Asbury Park, and Vernon Sanders, 37, of Brick, stood trial in the gang execution earlier this year, but a mistrial was declared when the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict.
Hopes later pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
Sanders is scheduled to be retried for the murder next month.
Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Asbury Park juvemile caugth on video firing on murder victim: Police
