Nearly 16 years after Leroy Julious, a cook who worked at The College of New Jersey, was found lifeless in a gravel lot in Ewing with out-turned pockets, state authorities have charged two men with his murder.
A cold case investigation in the 2008 killing, reopened last year, led police to Breyon Goodman, 36, of Trenton, and Jason Howard, 41, who is currently locked up in Rhode Island on separate charges, according to New Jersey’s Regional Cold Case Task Force.
Julious, known as “Cook” or “Cookie” to his friends and family, had recently cashed a bonus check and was headed home for a celebratory seafood dinner with his girlfriend when he was beaten, robbed and left for dead not far from his Ewing Township home.
“For 16 years the senseless, cruel death of Leroy Julious has gone unsolved,” said Attorney General Matthew Platkin. “But law enforcement did not forget, and did not give up.”
Authorities now say Howard was among the witnesses at the scene when police arrived.
They provided few other details about the evidence connecting Goodman and Howard to the murder.
Thomas Eicher, the head of the state Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, which oversees the cold case task force, cited “dogged detective work, technological advances, inter-agency cooperation and a shared, unflagging desire for answers and accountability for this terrible crime.”
Julious died from “severe head trauma” with blood on his face, head and neck, and officers at the scene reported his pockets “were turned inside out.”
He was found unresponsive in a gravel lot, though state investigators now say he was dragged there from ”the garage carport of a nearby house.”
Friends and family who spoke to The Times of Trenton in 2016 said there had long been talk of one suspect, who knew Julious was carrying a large sum of money because Julious had paid the man a few dollars he had owed him.
But despite re-investigating the case several times over the years, authorities never gathered enough evidence to bring charges.
The Mercer County Homicide Task Force received “new information” in the case in March of last year, prompting local and state investigators to take yet another look, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said, calling the detectives “relentless in the pursuit of justice.”
DNA and other evidence from the scene were sent to a State Police lab, where “technological advancements in forensic science provided new information related to the case,” local and state authorities said in a news release.
Goodman was arrested in Trenton on April 15. Charging documents were not immediately available, though court records show Goodman is being held pending a detention hearing on murder charges.
Howard is being held without bail on unrelated domestic violence charges in Rhode Island, court records show.
“We hope the charges bring a measure of relief to the victim’s grieving loved ones,” Platkin said.
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S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X.
