A New Jersey man has pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter for the 2022 killing of a 9-year-old girl who was shot dead in an apartment courtyard while playing outside with her brother and friends — all because of what her own mother called “stupid Facebook stuff.”
Isiah M. Roberts, now 23, was 19 years old when he opened fire at a “family nemesis” at the Kingsbury apartments in Trenton, striking fourth-grader Sequoya Bacon-Jones as she ran for cover. Her mother was standing outside and watched it happen in real time, NJ.com reports.
According to Roberts’ attorney, John W. Hartmann, the chain of events began online. A Facebook feud had spiraled into a physical altercation involving Roberts’ sister, prompting his mother and sister to contact him and tell him to “get down to Kingsbury.” When he arrived, Roberts was given the name of a “family nemesis,” the person police identified as his intended target.
He retrieved a 9 mm pistol from a nearby apartment, spotted the man outside, and believed him to be armed. He opened fire. Sequoya never made it to safety. “He shot off two rounds first, everybody scattered, and then he shot off another four rounds and my daughter got hit,” her mother, Sacha Bacon-Jones, said in a 2022 interview.
What followed was a scene no parent should ever have to endure. Bacon-Jones ran to her daughter as she lay on the ground. “I run up and my baby is laying on the ground covered in blood,” she recounted. “She’s not crying at all, she’s just like moaning and she’s reaching for me and I’m like I can’t believe what I’m looking at. It’s not really happening, but it’s really happening.”
Local residents and her mother attempted to help Sequoya before police arrived, but the little girl did not survive.
Hartmann acknowledged in court that while Roberts did not intend to harm Sequoya, he showed a reckless disregard for human life that warranted the manslaughter charge.
Roberts entered his guilty plea last week. Bacon-Jones has been unflinching in her grief and her anger. She described the dispute that claimed her daughter’s life as “stupid Facebook stuff” and, reflecting on what was taken from her, said simply: “Now all I have are memories I can’t make anymore.” Under his plea agreement, Roberts faces between 15 and 18 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
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