Justice For Quiana Dees
MONMOUTH COUNTY PROSECUTOR ANNOUNCES 40-YR OLD WOMAN CHARGED IN 1992 KILLING OF 12-YR OLD GIRL
City resident Penny Dees has spent over 26 years commemorating her child’s life by walking the likely route the 12-year-old Quiana took before she was found bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head at 2:44 a.m. May 2, 1992.
Today, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni announced they have charged a 40 year old woman with aggravated manslaughter for the killing of Quiana Dees.
A woman who formerly resided in Asbury Park has been charged in the 1992 fatal shooting of a 12-year old girl, Spokesman Charlie Webster said.
Because the woman, now 40 and living in Henderson, NC, was 13 years old at the time of the shooting, she is being prosecuted under a juvenile delinquency complaint.
The juvenile statutes in effect at the time of the crime preclude the possibility of waiver of this case to adult criminal court, Webster said. Due to the requirements of confidentiality in all juvenile proceedings, the defendant’s name and other details regarding the case are prohibited from disclosure and cannot be released.
Quiana Dees was discovered unconscious and clinging to life in a vacant wooded lot on Washington Avenue in Neptune Township, according to officials. The 7th grader had snuck out of her Asbury Park apartment the previous evening, her mother has said.
She was found suffering from a head wound later determined to be caused by a gunshot, and was ultimately pronounced dead a day later.
During the annual Justice For Quiana march, held on the first Saturday in May, Detective John Leibfried of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit said every available resource was being utilized to solve the cold case.
“This has been going on for far too long,” he said during the march that traced Quiana’s likely route she took in May 1992. “Based on my conversations with Prosecutor [Christopher] Gramiccioni, every available resource we have is strictly dedicated to solving this case. This is our primary goal, to solve this case.”
Webster said this is the seventh unsolved homicide to result in an arrest or otherwise solved in the past three years since Gramiccioni made cold case homicide reviews a priority.
The annual march not only marked the tragic anniversary and unsolved murder but was held as a call to stop the violence that plagues parts of the small close-knit community, Penny Dees has said.
“I am not only marching for my child, I am marching for all the other murdered children, wherever they are,” Dees said. “It’s hard because I don’t get to see her grow up and get married but I thank God that he has kept me thus far and is still keeping me.”
The homicide complaint was issued against the former Asbury Park resident as a result of a joint investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Cold Case Unit and members of the Asbury Park, Neptune Township and Henderson, North Carolina Police Departments, Webster said. The 40-year-old woman remains detained in North Carolina, pending extradition back to New Jersey to face the charge.
She faces a maximum 4 years imprisonment, Webster said. All future proceedings in the matter will be held in Monmouth County Family Court, Juvenile Division.
Anyone with information pertaining to the case is being urged to call Det John Leibfried of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office at 1-800-533-7443 or Det Eric Chunn of the Neptune Township Police Department at 732-988-8000.
The case is assigned to Assistant Prosecutor Meghan Doyle, Director of the Cold Case and Fatal Motor Vehicle Unit.
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