Surveillance cameras captured Neptune killing, but who was the gunman behind the mask?

FREEHOLD Randolph Goodman drove home the night of Nov. 10, 2018, parked his car and took a bag of takeout from Red Lobster upstairs to his Neptune apartment, but not before having a conversation outside with Marcus Morrisey, a prosecutor told a Monmouth County jury Wednesday.

Morrisey wanted to buy some cocaine from Goodman, Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Ellyn Rajfer told the jury.

Goodman went inside his apartment on Old Corlies Avenue, put down his bag of Red Lobster, had a conversation with his girlfriend and retrieved some cocaine to sell to Morrisey, Rajfer said.

When he went back downstairs, Marcus Morrisey and his nephew, Danron Morrisey, were lying in wait, armed with a stun gun and a handgun, the assistant prosecutor said.

Marcus Morrisey, 52, and Danron Morrisey, 30, both of Asbury Park, are now on trial before Superior Court Judge Marc C. LeMieux, charged with the murder and robbery of Goodman, a father of four. The pair also is charged with felony murder and weapons offenses.

Rajfer, in her opening statement to the jury Wednesday, told the panel they will hear testimony from the victim’s girlfriend, who witnessed the fatal shooting.

She also promised jurors they will witness the incident themselves, because it was captured by surveillance cameras at a number of nearby locations - a grocery store downstairs from Goodman’s apartment, a first aid squad building, a nearby residence on the street where Marcus Morrisey’s ex-wife resides, and a QuickChek convenience store across the street from where the shooting occurred.

The video shows Marcus Morrisey being dropped off in front of Goodman’s apartment after leaving his ex-wife’s home on Fairfield Avenue, and then going back and forth to the QuickChek, where he is seen on video talking to Danron Morrisey, Rajfer said.

While waiting for Goodman to come out of his apartment, Marcus Morrisey summoned his nephew, who emerged from the shadows wearing a mask, Rajfer said.

The pair attacked Goodman, who tried to fight them off, but as Goodman tried to get away, Danron Morrisey fired a gun at him, she said.

Goodman made it to the top of the staircase leading to his apartment, where he collapsed, Rajfer said. He died within hours at nearby Jersey Shore University Medical Center of a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

John Perrone, Danron Morrisey’s attorney, told the jury that although Goodman’s girlfriend witnessed the shooting, she was unable to identify Danron Morrisey as the gunman, only describing him as a thin, black man wearing a mask.

“There may be other suspects out there that fit that,’’ Perrone said.

The eyewitness said the gunman was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, the defense attorney said.

“Is that unusual for a young male?’’ Perrone asked

In the footage from the QuickChek, Danron Morrisey was unmasked, he said.

“Look at all the reasons a person would be at a QuickChek,’’ he said, telling the jury his client was there to purchase blunts to use to smoke marijuana.

Perrone reminded the jury the state has to prove all the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt to gain convictions.

“That’s not going to happen,’’ he said.

“Danron was not at the scene,’’ Perrone said. “Danron is not depicted in the video.’’

While Goodman’s girlfriend was the only eyewitness to the fatal shooting, “you will learn that she was selling drugs along with Randolph Goodman that day,’’ Marcus Morrisey’s attorney, Joshua Hood, told the jurors, urging them to carefully evaluate her testimony.

When police arrived on the scene, “her first instinct was to tell them that they could not search the apartment,’’ Hood said.

Rajfer noted that when police did search the apartment, they found cocaine and a scale inside.

“This is a busy intersection,’’ Hood said of the location of the crime. “Everything is caught on camera. You will observe Marcus on that footage. You will not see him attempting to hide. …This was not a man with a sordid plot, with a devious plan.’’

The state’s first witness was Robert Flanigan, who was a crime scene detective with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office in 2018. He testified a 9mm shell casing was located near the entrance to Goodman’s apartment.

Rajfer told the jury that a handgun was recovered a month and a half later on a street in Asbury Park.

The firearm was determined to be the murder weapon because it was matched to the shell casing found at the scene and the bullet taken from Goodman, Flanigan testified.

Both Morriseys had been jailed since their arrests in 2019 until June, when they were ordered released on speedy trial grounds because of delays in the case.

Their attorneys had argued for their release on grounds that their trial was delayed because prosecutors waited until last year to turn over thousands of pages of evidence they had for years. The evidence that was withheld included ballistics, autopsy, laboratory and DNA reports, the defense attorneys said.

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: Cameras captured Neptune killing, but who was the masked gunman?