Community To Rally After Grandmother Is Carjacked, Shot Dead In Newark
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- A family was pleading for justice Tuesday night after a beloved grandmother was carjacked, gunned down and left to die in Newark.
As CBS2's Jessica Layton reported, the community has banded together to help find Deborah Burton's killer.
Burton, 62, was gunned down on Third Street in Newark on the afternoon of Monday, March 13. Her car was found a few blocks away.
Her family will join community leaders on Wednesday calling for an end to the senseless violence killing innocent people.
"Heartbreaking, soul-wrenching blow," said Imam Shakur Abdulrahim, who was Burton's high school sweetheart and the father of her two children.
Abdulrahim was stunned that anybody could ever think about hurting Burton - let alone kill her.
"Of all the people… why choose her?" he said.
Burton, a grandmother who has been living in suburban Maplewood for years, was gunned down in Newark after a trip to the nearby Shop Rite. It started out as a carjacking.
"It was a 2012 Chevy – a little bent up. So we just don't get It," Abdulrahim said.
Her life ended behind a boarded up, abandoned home on Third Street in the city where she spent her childhood.
"They shot her multiple times in the back," Abdulrahim said, "and she was able to crawl out to the street, so I'm told, and cry out for help."
The family believes the killers took off in her car and left her to die. Her ex-husband and her four children are desperate for answers into how a routine trip to the store could end so tragically for the devoted Maplewood mother.
"The personal family – we're hurting," Abdulrahim said. "And we ask that the community hurt with us and help us to solve the crime."
The anti-violence rally is Wednesday at 5:30 at Second and Dickerson streets. In the meantime, anyone with information on who killed Burton is asked to call Newark police.