NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Three friends were forced to kneel against a wall behind an elementary school and were shot to death at close range, and a fourth was found about 30 feet away with gunshot and knife wounds to her head, police said.
All were from Newark and planned to attend Delaware State University this fall.
Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow said authorities didn't have any suspects or a motive in the killings late Saturday. None of the victims had any criminal record, she said.
"They were good kids,'' Dow said.
The four had been listening to music in a parking lot behind Mount Vernon School when they were gradually joined by a group of men, authorities said.
Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said the four exchanged text messages saying they should leave, but were attacked before they could do so.
Police said the attackers shot one young woman, then forced her three companions down an alley, lined them up against a wall, made them kneel and shot each in the head.
Natasha Aerial, 19 (bottom right), was listed in fair condition at Newark's University Hospital, authorities said. Police identified her companions as her brother, Terrance Aerial, 18 (top right), Iofemi Hightower (top left), 20, and Deshawn Harvey, 20.
The Aerials' mother, Renee Tucker, said the last time she saw them was around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when they told her they were going around the corner to get something to eat.
"They said they were going to come right back to the house,'' Tucker said.
By Monday, police had not announced any arrests in the shooting and didn't return repeated calls for comment by The Associated Press.
In the wake of the killings, Mayor Cory A. Booker again found himself defending his administration's inability to make a dent in the city's alarming murder rate.
"This is just not acceptable. This breaks the heart of our city,'' he said at news conference Saturday. A spokeswoman for Booker didn't immediately return a call for comment on Monday.
A month ago, Booker and Police Director Garry McCarthy announced that crime in the city had fallen by 20 percent in the first six months of 2007 compared to a year ago. Yet despite decreases in the number of rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies, the murders have continued at an alarming rate.
Saturday night's killings, along with an unrelated shooting over the weekend that killed a Montclair man, brought Newark's murder total to 60 in 2007.
That is three fewer than in the same period in 2006. But that statistic obscures a more disturbing one: 17 people have been killed in the city in the eight weeks since June 12, a rate that would surpass 2006's total of 106 murders for the calendar year.
At Delaware State, officials said the school plans to hold a memorial service Aug. 28, after the student body returns for the fall semester.
"We are deeply saddened over the violent shooting incident that took the lives of two of our students and left one seriously injured,'' university President Allen Sessoms said in a statement. "While the murder of the two students is a terribly loss in human terms, the facts that they were a part of the DSU family and were striving to earn a degree, create a bright future for themselves and become a solid contributors to society, makes this violent act especially tragic and senseless.''
Top photo: Father and grandmother of Deshawn Harvey attend news conference with Mayor Cory Booker (from Al Jones)
Insert photo courtesy of WNBC.com
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