Asbury killing: 2 Neptune teens plead guilty in 10-year-old’s death

Kathleen Hopkins | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Two Neptune teens plead guilty to killing of 10-year-old Karon Council and Jah-Del Birch pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the shooting death of Yovanni Banos-Merino, 10, of Asbury Park.

FREEHOLD - Two Neptune teenagers pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated manslaughter in a shooting that claimed the life of a 10-year-old Asbury Park boy and wounded the child’s mother.

Karon Council, 19, admitted to Superior Court Judge Richard W. English that on Feb. 21, he fired four to five bullets into a house on Ridge Avenue in Asbury Park where Yovanni Banos-Merino was mortally wounded as he lay in bed.

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Council’s plea bargain calls for a 25-year prison term with no chance for release on parole before he serves 85 percent of the term, under the state's No Early Release Act.

Jah-Del Birch, 17, admitted acting as an accomplice to Council at the deadly shooting, in which the boy’s mother, Lilia Merino, suffered a gunshot wound to her leg.

Prosecutor details how Council fired shots into apartment, killing boy Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Bogner details how Karon Council fired five shots into an Asbury Park apartment crowded with a dozen people, many of them children, killing a 10-year-old and wounding the boy's mother.

Birch faces 10 years in prison and must serve 85 percent of that before he can be considered for release on parole.

More: Asbury Park murder suspect fired 5 shots into crowded apartment, prosecutor says

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Both defendants had been charged with murder, for which they would have faced 30 years to life in prison upon convictions. Without plea bargains, both would have faced up to 30 years in prison on the downgraded charge of aggravated manslaughter.



Both defendants also pleaded guilty to possessing a weapon for an unlawful purpose, for which they each face concurrent prison terms of five years.



Birch, although 16 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult in the case.



Laying a factual basis for his guilty plea, Birch admitted that Council was armed with a 9mm handgun when he accompanied him to Ridge Avenue on the night of the killing.



Answering questions posed by defense attorney Jeffrey Coghlan, Birch conceded that he and Council had a plan for Council to shoot someone by the name of Juan Garcia, with whom Council had a longstanding disagreement and who lived in an apartment on Ridge Avenue.



The pair hid the handgun in some bushes up the street while they hung out in a vestibule outside the apartment where the target lived, Birch admitted. At one point, Birch knocked on the apartment door to confirm Garcia was inside, he admitted.



After that, Birch and Council went to retrieve the gun and walked back to the apartment, into which Council fired four to five shots, mortally wounding the boy and injuring his mother, Birch admitted.



"You knew there were people inside when the gun was fired?'' Matthew Bogner, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, asked him. Birch responded affirmatively.



Council provided the same factual scenario while questioned by his defense attorney, Paul Zager.



"Did you fire four to five shots into the house?'' Zager asked his client, who answered that he did.



"We discussed that was senseless and tragic,'' Zager said. "You understand you acted in a reckless manner, causing death?''



Council responded, "Yes, I understand.''



Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Joseph Cummings, at a detention hearing for Birch in June, said there were more than 10 people inside the apartment, many of them children, when it was sprayed with gunfire.



Bogner on Monday said the 10-year-old victim's mother was made aware of the plea bargain. She sat quietly in the back of the courtroom, surrounded by relatives, listening to a court interpreter translate the proceedings.



Birch's mother began to sob after her son entered his guilty plea. Council's parents also were in the courtroom.

Following the shooting, Council, then 18, fled to Florida, where he was captured by U.S. marshals in Pompano Beach on Feb. 25.



Birch was arrested two days earlier during a lock-down at Neptune High School, where he was a student.



Both defendants have been held without bail since their arrests.



Attorneys for both defendants said they plan to ask that their clients be sentenced to serve their terms in a youth correctional facility.



Additional charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a weapon against both defendants will be dismissed at sentencing, according to the plea bargains.

Both defendants are scheduled to be sentenced by English on Jan. 11.

Kathleen Hopkins: Khopkins@app.com; 732-643-4202

