September 25, 2024
Jon Tuleya/PhillyVoice
Zyhied Jones, 19, pleaded guilty Wednesday for his part in a fatal 2022 shooting outside Roxborough High School. Above, a memorial was created in 2022 for Nicolas Elizalde, the 14-year-old killed in the shooting.
A 19-year-old pleaded guilty Wednesday in the 2022 shooting outside Roxborough High School that killed a 14-year-old who was walking back to the school with teammates after a football scrimmage, authorities said.
Zyhied Jones, who was 17 at the time, was one of five suspects who fired more than 60 bullets at the group of football players on the 4700 block of Pechin Street on Sept. 27, 2022, killing Nicolas Elizalde, the Inquirer reported. Jones also pleaded guilty for his part in a deadly shooting that occurred the day before.
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For the Sept. 27 shooting, Jones pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, four counts of attempted murder, conspiracy and gun crimes, authorities said. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December and his offenses may carry a combined sentence of more than 300 years in prison, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott reportedly said.
Elizalde, a first-year student at Walter B. Saul High School who played junior varsity football on the combined team at Roxborough High School, was killed when the gunmen opened fire as he and his teammates walked back to the locker room at 4:40 p.m. The shooters had been waiting inside a stolen Ford Explorer that was parked nearby, authorities said.
Police have said the shooting was a targeted ambush and that Elizalde and his three teammates who were injured were innocent victims. A fourth person injured was a 17-year-old who did not attend Roxborough or play for the the football team; Philadelphia police said he was the intended target.
Jones was taken into custody in October 2022 and was the second suspect to be arrested in connection with the shooting. He was linked to the Roxborough shooting through information recovered from the getaway car's Bluetooth system, as well as a marijuana wrapper with his DNA that was found at the scene, the Inquirer reported.
Other suspects — Yaaseen Bivins, 21; Saleem Miller, 16; Troy Fletcher, 15 — were also arrested in the weeks following the shooting. The fifth and final suspect, Dayron Burney-Thorn, was arrested in Germantown in October 2023, after having gone on the run for more than a year. Jones is the first to plead guilty. The others are expected back in court in late October.
Jones, Fletcher and Burney-Thorne were also wanted for the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Tahmir Jones, who was killed in North Philly the day before the Roxborough High School attack. In that case, Zyhied Jones pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, conspiracy and gun crimes, authorities said.
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