The trial for Draymond Coleman, who allegedly killed a teenage girl in a Weehawken hotel room and left her body in a West New York garbage bin, probably won’t begin until 2009, Hudson County Prosecutor Ed DeFazio said last week.
“I would assume the trial date in this case would be set some time in the fall,” DeFazio said, noting that the trial and preparations will likely be lengthy, so the court has to wait to schedule it at the right time.
In March of 2007, a Hudson County grand jury served a murder indictment against Coleman and his girlfriend, Krystal Riordan. Coleman is accused of allegedly picking up a teenage girl, Jennifer Moore, in New York City in July of 2006 after she had been drinking at a bar. He allegedly brought her to the Weehawken hotel room he shared with Riordan, where Moore was beaten, raped, and strangled to death.
The body of Moore, 18, was found in a Dumpster at a West New York apartment complex the next day.
Other missing persons Last week, the Reporter asked DeFazio if there were attempts to investigate whether Coleman might have been linked to other missing persons cases, considering Moore’s body would never have been found except for gaffes on the part of the suspect.
In 2007, there were 73,531 women over 18 reported missing, according to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center’s Missing Person File. While many of those cases were solved, not all of them have been.
“Yes,” DeFazio said. “As a matter of fact, I know the NYPD was looking into matters over there. [Coleman] had not been charged with any additional matters, but I know the NYPD was concerned about that.” DeFazio would not elaborate further, but said Coleman was not charged with anything else.
According to newspaper reports, Coleman, who was 35 at the time of the indictment, has a long criminal history. His girlfriend, Krystal Riordan, 21 at the time, was allegedly working as a prostitute.
The New York Times said Coleman had nine misdemeanors on his record, as well as a five-year prison term for selling crack cocaine.
Newspapers also reported that Coleman allegedly was acting as a pimp for Riordan, and that the two have an infant daughter who is now in foster care.
The pair was indicted in March of 2007 on the charges of murder, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, weapons offenses, hindering apprehension, and tampering with evidence.
At the time they were indicted, the two faced the death penalty. However, capital punishment was abolished in New Jersey nine months later.
That night Jennifer Moore was 18 when she went to a Manhattan nightclub with a friend from home on July 25, 2006. When they left the bar, they realized the friend’s car had been towed to an impound lot near the Lincoln Tunnel.
Visibly upset, the two went to the lot and tried to get the car out. The friend passed out, and workers at the impound lot called an ambulance. That was when Moore wandered toward the West Side Highway.
At some point, Coleman allegedly picked her up in a cab and promised her a ride back to New Jersey. Moore phoned her friend and told her she had gotten a ride.
Instead, Coleman allegedly took her to their room at the low-budget Park Avenue Hotel in Weehawken. Video from the hallways shows Coleman, Moore, and Riordan at several times during the night.
The first time, Coleman is seen on surveillance cameras leading an intoxicated Moore into the hotel. Moore later is shown entering the third floor community bathroom, then returning to the hotel room.
Moore does not appear in the video after that. But the video later shows Coleman and Riordan leaving the room with a suitcase.
“The victim was [allegedly] sexually assaulted by Coleman, and the woman [allegedly] was there when it happened,” DeFazio said in March of 2007. “That’s what we believe happened. The victim was then [allegedly] brutally beaten with a blunt object. She suffered multiple traumas to multiple parts of her body and she was struck with a sharp-edged instrument, then strangled.”
Police later alleged that Coleman and Riordan cleaned Moore’s body in the community bathroom to remove DNA evidence, and that Coleman clipped her fingernails as well.
How they were found Police were led to Coleman after the victim’s cell phone showed that someone had used it to call Coleman’s mother in New York.
Police were able to track down Riordan at a residence. Once apprehended, Riordan told New York City police where the body was left. Police were led to a garbage bin at a West New York apartment complex.
According to a report in the New York Post, Coleman somehow met his alleged accomplice, Krystal Riordan, via the Elan School, a school for troubled students in remote Poland, Maine. Riordan is the daughter of a prominent Democratic committeeman in Connecticut.
According to the school’s Web site, “Elan School accepts adolescents with emotional, behavioral or adjustment problems.” The yearly tuition is $49,071.96.
While records show that Coleman has lived in Manchester, N.H., DeFazio said he was “primarily a New York guy.”
DeFazio said that Coleman had listed an address on 48th Street in Weehawken in 1990, as well as West 92nd Street in New York City at other times.
Coleman and Riordan are still both incarcerated at the Hudson County Jail, DeFazio said.
Comments on this story can be sent to editorial@Hudsonreporter.com. Jim Hague contributed to this story.