Bond-Tevlin

Cheyanne Bond (left) and Brendan Tevlin (right)

Suspects clockwise from top left: Ali Muhammad Brown, 29; Jeremy Villagran, 19; Andre Fields, 31; and Eric Williams, 18. Brown, Villagran and Williams are charged in Brendan Tevlin's slaying. Fields is charged in the death of Cheyanne Bond.

NEWARK — Police have arrested four suspects in connection with the unrelated shooting deaths of two Essex County teenagers, each of which began as a robbery, authorities said.

Andre Fields, 31, of Irvington was charged in the death of 17-year-old Cheyanne Bond, a recent graduate of Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, who was shot and killed on June 29 after two men approached her and a friend and demanded they hand over a iPhone, according to Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray.

Three men, including a double-murder suspect from Seattle, were charged in the death of 19-year-old Brendan Tevlin, a Livingston resident who had just returned home from his first year of college at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Tevlin was found shot to death inside a SUV on June 25. Prosecutors said the suspects robbed Tevlin of several personal items.

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At a press conference this afternoon, Murray said Tevlin was in his grandfather's car heading home the night of his death when a car carrying three men pulled up alongside him at a traffic light.

West Orange resident Eric Williams, 18, stayed behind the wheel while Villagran and Brown — already wanted for the shooting death of two gay men in Seattle on June 1 — hopped out and surrounded Tevlin's Jeep Liberty, according to authorities.

"He was, at this time, a simple victim of an intent to rob," Murray said.

One of the men had a brief conversation with Tevlin before Brown, who was standing on the vehicle's passenger side, allegedly fired 10 bullets, eight of which struck Tevlin.

Williams and Villagran then fled the scene, while Brown got inside Tevlin's vehicle, moved his body into the passenger seat, and drove to an apartment complex at 275 Northfield Avenue, where Villagran lives, Murray said.

Police responding to a call of shots fired found his body a short time later.

Brown was taken into custody on July 18 after he was found living in a makeshift tent in West Orange, and arrested without incident. Police recovered a gun at the camp site which had previously been linked to both Tevlin's death and the Seattle murders, Murray said.

A registered sex offender, he apparently has ties to New Jersey and had returned to the area from Seattle in June. He was also wanted in a June 29 carjacking in Point Pleasant, for which an Ocean County judge had issued a warrant, though he was never taken into custody, authorities said.

He is being held on $5 million bail at the Essex County Jail on murder, felony murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and weapons charges, as well as offenses related to the carjacking. He is awaiting extradition to Washington to be arraigned in the Seattle murders.

Villagran is also facing aggravated assault charges for a separate shooting in Newark, and has been in the Essex County Jail since July 9, authorities said, while Eric Williams was arrested this morning. Both are charged with felony murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and weapons charges, and are being held on $1 million bond.

Bond was walking on the 500 block of South 17th Street near Westside Park in Newark's South Ward June 29 when she and a male friend were approached by two armed men, who demanded they hand over an iPhone, according to Murray.

She was shot once in the head during the encounter, authorities said, killing her. Her companion was also shot, but managed to survive.

One of the men remains at large, though investigators were able to link Fields to the killing, authorities announced today. He was arrested on Friday, and has been charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, robbery, conspiracy and various weapons charges, and is being held on $1 million bond.

Murray said the sole motive for the crime appears to have been robbery, but declined to disclose details of whether the phone belonged to Bond or her companion, citing the active search for the remaining suspect. They did not say whether the other man involved in the robbery has been identified.

Both investigations are ongoing, and additional charges may still be filed.

Bond was a member of the cheerleading squad at Shabazz High School, from which she had graduated just nine days before her death. School officials described her as a quiet and dedicated student who had planned to study nursing at Union County College in the fall.

Her murder was the third in Newark in less than 24 hours, and the city’s 43rd of 2014.

Tevlin was the eldest of four children and a popular presence in Livingston and at Seton Hall Prep, where he graduated high school last year.

His funeral last month drew more than 1,000 mourners, who described him as a kind, athletic young man who lived by a motto of “Good vibes and easy living.”

The Rev. Msgr. Michael E. Kelly, president of Seton Hall Prep, today said the arrest made in Tevlin’s murder puts the teenager’s family, friends and the greater school community at ease.

But Kelly added, “Unfortunately, it’s not going to bring Brendan back…to us.”

Star-Ledger writer Bill Wichert contributed to this post.