Police have arrested a suspect nearly four months after a New Jersey Republican councilwoman was gunned down in her car as she was nearing her home.
Rashid Ali Bynum, 28, was arrested and charged in the murder of 30-year-old Eunice Dwumfour, who was shot and killed on the evening of February 1. Dwumfour and Bynum knew each other from working together at Champions Royal Assembly, a Nigeria-based prosperity gospel church in Newark, police said, according to ABC 7.
“This was a very complex, extensive case with painstaking police work every single moment until today and it will continue after today,” Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone said at a press conference attended by Dwumfour’s family members. “The murder has shaken the community and no arrest will bring back the late councilwoman.”
Bynum was taken into custody in Chesapeake City, Virginia, where he lived, and he will be extradited to New Jersey, where the suspect will be held at the Middlesex County Adult Correctional facility until his pre-trial hearing. The suspect was caught on surveillance footage fleeing the scene after the shooting, according to Ciccone. The prosecutor also said that Bynum’s phone indicated that he had traveled from Virginia to New Jersey at the time of Dwumfour’s murder.
The suspect allegedly searched online for information about Dwumfour’s church and the town where she lived, the New York Post reported. Bynum is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun, and second-degree possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose.
Eyewitnesses said they saw the gunman run toward Garden State Parkway after firing multiple times into Dwumfour’s vehicle. The councilwoman’s vehicle traveled around 100 feet before hitting two parked cars. Ciccone did not provide any motive for why Bynum allegedly targeted the Republican councilwoman.
The case went silent for months as authorities held no press conferences, and the prosecutor’s office requested an injunction to block news outlets from obtaining important information about the investigation. In March, the councilwoman’s parents expressed frustration at the lack of developments from the investigation into their daughter’s murder. The family’s attorney also said the lack of info from authorities on the case was “mystifying and troubling.”
Dwumfour was elected to the Borough of Sayreville City Council in an upset victory over her Democratic opponent in 2021. She was also a business analyst and part-time EMT and was heavily involved in her church.
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The Republican councilwoman was the oldest of five children born to a Ghanaian family. In December, Dwumfour celebrated getting married to a Nigerian pastor. She was also the mother of an 11-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.