Sentence: 56 Years for Wallace’s Murder; Three Defendants Used Plea Bargains

COURT HOUSE – Three defendants who pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter with extreme indifference to human life received their jail sentences June 10, in accordance with plea bargains they entered earlier in Superior Court.
Millville residents Andre Gross and Norman Gray each received 20 years to be served in a New Jersey State Prison, while Boris Curwen received 10 years. Gross and Gray each received an additional three years to be served consecutively for illegal disposal of a body in connection with the 2011 murder of Woodbine resident Khalil Wallace. Wallace was a 19-year-old Rowan University student and father of an infant daughter at the time of his death.
Gross and Gray reached plea bargains April 13. Curwen agreed to a plea bargain in 2012, agreeing to “testify truthfully” against the other men in the case. Each defendant must serve at least 85 percent of their sentence prior to release, pursuant to the No Early Release Law. All other charges against the trio were dismissed.
The Honorable Patricia Wild served as judge for the proceedings.
Before sentencing, attorneys for the defendants and the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office presented mitigating factors in favor of their positions that might sway the judge to issue concurrent sentences instead of consecutive sentences. Wallace’s aunt, sister and the mother of his daughter also addressed the court and defendants.
Robert Johnson, Cape May County first assistant prosecutor, agreed that Curwen helped provide evidence against his co-defendants, and acknowledged that his criminal history “was not as bad as the others.
“At the time, he was the youngest in the group,” Johnson said about what he called a “street gang drug incident.” He believed Curwen was “influenced by the group. He was in fear for his family if he did not participate.”
Wallace’s body was found Oct. 6, 2011, in a Downe Township lake. Positive identification was made through fingerprints. Wallace was last seen the afternoon of Sept. 20, 2011, outside a Dollar Plus store in Woodbine. He was reported missing by family members Sept. 22, 2011. Autopsy reports indicated he had been shot three times.
Curwen, 23, asked forgiveness before sentencing. “I beg your forgiveness,” he said as he faced about a dozen and a half Wallace family members, some wearing t-shirts that carried Wallace’s face and “#Team Khalil” on the front. “What I did was incorrigible, and I am sorry.” Curwen and Wallace were childhood friends.
Gross, 31 and the father of two children also addressed the family, saying he was “sorry. I hope for forgiveness from you. It wasn’t intended to be a murder.”
Gray, 29 and the father of two, did not want to address the victim’s family.
Wallace, the father of an infant daughter at the time of his death, was a standout athlete at Millville High School and Rowan University. “He was the life of a party,” his aunt, Angela Hawkins, said previously. “Khalil was popular, fun and loved his family. He had just recently become a father a few months before he passed.”
Wearing an “Always Khalil” sweatshirt in court, Hawkins questioned how the plea bargain was justice for her family, who she described as “torn apart” by her nephew’s death. Speaking on their behalf, she questioned how the judge could let the “defendants walk the streets and see their family” when her family hadn’t been able to see Wallace once they discovered his body because it had deteriorated after about two weeks in the water.
“On June 21 (Father’s Day), we’ll be going to the cemetery to talk to Khalil,” she said. “It seems criminal justice is only for the criminals. I read the paper and see people dealing with drugs getting more time than these men. I ask the judge to consider how this has impacted our family.
“Family is everything to us,” she added, holding back tears. “We may not have had much growing up, but we did have trust and loyalty and our family. Our family is everything and it’s been broken apart by this.”
Her niece, Zahira Young, spoke about her “snatched childhood” as she addressed her brother’s killers. She was 13 and in the eighth grade when he died and recalled how she learned that her brother was missing, and how many in their community came out to help look for him.
“Why did this happen,” she asked. “I never did anything to you, so why did you hurt me (by killing my brother)?”
Mariah Rodriguez, the mother of Wallace’s daughter who is now four-and-one-half years old, described meeting Wallace in kindergarten, their first kiss at 14 and falling in love as a young child. She described the birth of their daughter during a snowstorm, and how much Wallace had loved her. Their daughter was eight months old when he died.
“She pretends to speak to him on the phone,” Rodriguez said, wiping away tears, “and said he comes to her in her dreams. She will never really know how much like him she is.”
She also noted how her daughter won’t be able to “do things with her Dad,” such as learning to ride a bike, playing t-ball or attending Father-Daughter events at school. “On Father’s Day, we’ll be taking our card to the cemetery.”
While all four attorneys and Hawkins agreed that “no number would bring justice” to the Wallace family in terms of a sentence, Johnson did say that the case would serve to show “what happens when you engage in drug distribution.
“The state believes this was a serious crime and has treated it as such,” Johnson said. “While we agreed to a plea bargain, no number will ever be enough. They will serve 56 years among all three guys.”
The judge said she treated the two counts – aggravated manslaughter and failure to dispose of human remains according to law – as two separate incidents, thus issuing consecutive sentences.
“The failure to dispose of the body properly was meant to destroy evidence,” she explained, “separate from killing Wallace.”
Curwen has already served 1,342 days of his sentence; Gross has served 1,340 days while Grey has served 173 days.
Several members of the Grey family also were in attendance.
After the hearing, Watkins said she wanted her nephew remembered as the all-star football player, honor student and father that he was. “He would have graduated from college this year, instead we are in court dealing with his murderers,” she said.
“I think the judge listened to us, and heard us,” she noted. “It’s a little too early for forgiveness, I think, but I hope our family can heal and mend and move forward. No number would have been enough.”
To contact Karen Knight, email knight@cmcherald.com.