 [NYPOST] A 28-year-old Virginia man has been arrested for murdering New Jersey Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, who was gunned down outside her Sayreville home in February.
State and federal authorities seized Rashid Ali Bynum outside a home in Chesapeake City, Virginia, at about 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday and charged him with first-degree murder and a pair of gun offenses, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone said during a press conference.
“The murder has shaken the community, and no arrest will bring back the late councilwoman,” Ciccone said. “However, I do trust that justice will be found through the criminal justice process.”
Bynum, who lives in Portsmouth, Virginia,
| Why would a well-groomed gentleman from Virginia travel north to New Jersey to kill a minor local politician, only to turn around and return home? |
is awaiting extradition to the Garden State. When he arrives, he will be held at the Middlesex County Adult Correctional facility while he waits for a pre-trial detention hearing in the state Superior Court.
Dwumfour, a 30-year-old Republican, died after Bynum allegedly pumped several rounds into her SUV at about 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 1 — while Dwumfour’s 12-year-old daughter sat inside their home.
Witnesses said they saw a man dressed in black running from the scene, but investigators said nothing for months about how the case was progressing, if they identified a suspect and what the motive for Dwumfour’s killing might be.
On Tuesday, Ciccone said authorities placed Bynum’s cellphone and his white Hyundai Elantra near the murder scene that day. His appearance also matched descriptions gleaned from eyewitness statements and nearby surveillance videos, she said.
Dwumfour apparently knew Bynum beforehand — he was listed as a contact in the councilwoman’s phone.
Next to his name was the acronym “FCF,” which Ciccone said stands for “Fire Congress Fellowship,” a church Dwumfour was once associated with.
The fellowship is also affiliated with the Champion Royal Assembly, which Dwumfour belonged to at the time of her death, Ciccone said.
Bynum allegedly searched the internet for information about Dwumfour’s church, the town in which she lived and which magazines were compatible with a specific handgun, the prosecutor said.
A church associate of a pastor and town councilwoman who was gunned down in her SUV outside her home in February was arrested Tuesday on murder and gun charges, New Jersey prosecutors said.
Rashid Ali Bynum, 28, of Portsmouth, Virginia, was linked to the death of Sayreville Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, 30, after investigators traced his travels from his cellphone and vehicle location data on Feb. 1, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone said at a news conference.
Dwumfour was a pastor in a prosperity gospel church, Champions Royal Assembly, that is based in Nigeria, and she got married there in November to a fellow pastor from Abuja. She was also an officer of a related entity, the Fire Congress Fellowship, that has a branch in Virginia. Bynum was listed in her cellphone contacts under that group’s acronym.
Court records and tax filings suggest that church finances in the U.S. were tight. Dwumfour had been named in a series of landlord-tenant disputes in Newark dating from 2017 to 2020 involving the fellowship, which had seen its income drop from about $250,000 in 2017 to just $350 in 2020.
Dwumfour, who grew up in Newark, had lived in Virginia at one point, and family lawyer John Wisniewski said Bynum had lived in Sayreville. But beyond that, he did not know the nature of their relationship and the prosecutor declined to discuss a possible motive.
Sayreville Mayor Victoria Kilpatrick — a political ally who decided not to run for reelection as the slaying went unsolved — took some comfort that the killing did not appear politically motivated, but was troubled by the apparent link to a church to which Dwumfour was deeply devoted.
Dwumfour, a Republican, was elected to her first three-year term in 2021, when she ousted a Democratic incumbent. Colleagues recalled her as a soft-spoken devout Christian who could maintain her composure in contentious situations. FCF was a Bible study organization Dwumfour had created while she served as a pastor at the Newark branch of the Champions Royal Assembly, an evangelical Christian church based in Nigeria.
Wilson Adubasim, the chief financial officer of the Champions Royal Assembly in Newark, said he recognized Bynum from the photo released by the prosecutor’s office as a church member. While he said he did not know Bynum very well, the CFO said Bynum was a member of the councilwoman’s church around 2015 to 2017.
"I’m not seeing any reason why he would (kill Dwumfour)," Adubasim told NJ Advance Media Tuesday night. He described Bynum as mild-mannered. "He wasn’t a bad kid, he wasn’t into evil," Adubasim said.
And, while he said Dwumfour was a member of the church during the time period Bynum was there, he didn’t know of any relationship between the two.
"He wanted to be a rapper," Adubasim said of Bynum. "He was also into boxing. My older brother was into boxing, and they used to talk about it."
There was a Christian student organization on the Rutgers campus that used to hold Bible discussion meetings, he said. He remembers seeing Bynum at one of those sessions as well. At that time, the church was meeting on Freylinghuysen Avenue in Newark. The congregation later moved to its current location on Broad Street in Newark.
Around 2016, the church was preparing a program for the visit of its Nigerian leader.
"(Bynum) wanted to do a rap for one of the segments," Adubasim said. Adubasim wasn’t sure why, but he said Bynum never did perform.
He said Bynum came to church alone — no family or friends brought him — and his attendance was "sporadic" until he finally drifted away. Adubasim said he hadn’t seen him in years.
Virginia court records show that Bynum has been arrested in the Chesapeake, Virginia, and surrounding area on charges ranging from drug possession and credit card larceny and weapon possession. He received three years probation for carrying a concealed weapon in 2015 in Chesapeake and a 2019 gun arrest in Pocomoke City, Maryland, led to a 17-day jail term, Maryland court records show.
His cell phone was also detected going through toll booths at the same time as the white Hyundai from Virginia to New Jersey, and then back again on the day of the shooting.
WHO WAS EUNICE DWUMFOUR?
Dwumfour, a Republican, was elected to the seat in November 2021. She graduated from Newark Public Schools, before going on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in women and gender studies from William Paterson University.
Dwumfour was also a business analyst, part-time EMT, and director of churches.
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[NYPOST] A 28-year-old Virginia man has been arrested for murdering New Jersey Councilwoman