Serial killer Khalil Wheeler-Weaver guilty of murdering three women in 2016

Show Caption Hide Caption Serial killer Khalil Wheeler-Weaver found guilty on all counts A jury found accused serial killer Khalil Wheeler-Weaver guilty on all counts. Dec. 19, 2019.

Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, the Essex County man accused of a brutal North Jersey killing spree in 2016, was convicted on all counts Thursday, with a jury taking just two hours to reach the verdict after a two-month trial.

Wheeler-Weaver, 23, was found guilty of killing three women and attempting to murder a fourth during a frenzied 88-day span that ended only after the friends and family of one Montclair victim concocted a fake online profile to lure him to police.

A wave of silence swept the courtroom as the jury in Newark pronounced Wheeler-Weaver guilty on the first murder charge, and followed with convictions on all 10 remaining counts.

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Wheeler-Weaver stood with a quiet resignation. He left the courtroom in handcuffs, after Judge Mark Ali revoked his bail and ordered that he remain behind bars until a future sentencing date.

“I’m just glad that justice [was] served for my daughter,” Lavern Butler, whose daughter Sarah was found dead in late 2016, said after the verdict. “It’s a long, long three years waiting and I’m finally getting some relief.”

The former security guard from Orange could face five life sentences plus another 80 years in prison after being convicted on all charges, including murder, desecrating human remains, kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated arson.

Authorities say Wheeler-Weaver arranged encounters for sex with the four women and then attacked them, wrapping the victims' faces in tape and strangling them with articles of clothing. He targeted prostitutes or women dabbling in the sex trade, choosing victims he thought would go unmissed, prosecutors said.

One woman escaped to live. Three others — Butler, of Montclair, Robin West of Philadelphia and Joann Brown of Newark — did not.

Wheeler-Weaver's public defenders acknowledged the encounters during the trial but said their client dropped the women off safely at the end of each one and didn't harm anyone.

While prosecutors never used the term, the slayings fit the pattern of a serial killer, said Enzo Yaksic of he Atypical Homicide Research Group, a Northeastern University think tank that studies serial murder suspects. Wheeler-Weaver followed a methodical and obsessive pattern, choosing victims of the same race, employing the same killing method and looking to hide or destroy bodies.

He also shared another common trait with serial killers, Yaksic said: an interest in law enforcement. He was working as a security guard with Sterling Securities, a firm owned by two former Newark cops, and assigned to the ShopRite store in Union Township at the time of the killings. He hoped to become a police officer, authorities said.

Alexandra Briggs, one of his two attorneys, wiped tears from her cheeks as she exchanged a handshake with prosecutors on Thursday. The other, Deirdre McMahon, said the pair had no comment on the verdict.

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Members of the jury, who left the Essex County courthouse as a group, declined to comment, saying they had decided not to discuss the case publicly.

With little physical evidence connecting Wheeler-Weaver to the crime scenes, the state banked its case on geolocation data that placed his phone at the sites where he met the victims, and later where their bodies were found.

Wheeler-Weaver wore gloves for the meetings and used condoms during sex, leaving behind almost no DNA evidence, according to testimony. A forensic scientist from New Jersey's state crime lab testified that DNA matching Wheeler-Weaver's was found beneath Butler's fingernails but on none of the other victims.

Prosecutors also presented surveillance footage, incriminating Google searches and a small amount of DNA, as well as a videotaped police interview in which Wheeler-Weaver admitted to lying about his whereabouts.

Police said the killing spree began with the disappearance of Robin West on Aug. 31, 2016. The 19-year-old's body was discovered a month later in an abandoned building in Orange that had been set afire.

Another victim, 33-year-old Joann Brown, was found strangled on Dec. 5, 2016, at a vacant home in Orange not far from where Wheeler-Weaver lived.

The only woman to escape, identified by police as "T.T.," testified that she awoke in the back seat of her friend's vehicle with Wheeler-Weaver's hands around her neck. She said she convinced him to return to the Ritz Motel in Elizabeth, where they had met, to retrieve her cellphone. Once there, she locked herself alone inside a motel room and called police. Wheeler-Weaver allegedly fled.

"T.T.", whose name has not been published by NorthJersey.com and The USA TODAY NETWORK, returned to court to witness the verdict.

“I’m relieved and happy,” she said on Thursday. “But I also feel sad for his family because they lost a son.”

Authorities first interviewed Wheeler-Weaver after the disappearance of Sarah Butler, a Montclair college student who was on Thanksgiving break in 2016 when the pair connected on the social media site Tagged. Butler, 20, picked him up in her parents' minivan the night she vanished, according to testimony.

“He was a criminal, he was a stone-cold killer,” said Victor Butler, Sarah's father, adding that he had "no doubt” in the trial's outcome.

Butler's sister and friend discovered Wheeler-Weaver's Tagged profile while searching through Sarah's social media accounts after her disappearance.

They arranged a meeting with Wheeler-Weaver at a Panera Bread in Glen Ridge. When he arrived, Montclair police were waiting for him. He was questioned, but with Butler's whereabouts sill unknown, police declined to press charges.

Wheeler-Weaver was arrested less then two weeks later, after Butler's body was found in Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange beneath a pile of sticks and leaves.

"Without those women doing the things that they did, standing up for their friend, we would not have anything to work with,” Adam Wells, an assistant prosecutor in Essex County, said following the verdict.

Staff Writer Svetlana Shkolnikova and Keldy Ortiz contributed to this article.

Tom Nobile covers Superior Court in Bergen County for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from criminal trials to local lawsuits and insightiful analysis, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: nobile@northjersey.com Twitter: @tomnobile