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Left inset: Sequoya Bacon-Jones (WTXF/YouTube). Right inset: Isiah Roberts (Mercer County Correction Center). Background: A bench in the New Jersey courtyard where 9-year-old Sequoya Bacon-Jones was gunned down and killed by Isiah Roberts (WTXF/YouTube).
A man from New Jersey has confessed to fatally shooting a 9-year-old girl while she was playing outside with her brother and friends. The tragic event unfolded in front of her mother after he targeted a “family nemesis” in an apartment complex courtyard.
The incident was linked to what the victim’s family and the man’s lawyer described as a “stupid” dispute on Facebook.
Isiah M. Roberts, who was 19 when the shooting occurred in 2022, admitted guilt to aggravated manslaughter last week. The victim, Sequoya Bacon-Jones, was a fourth-grader from Trenton who tried to escape when Roberts began shooting in the courtyard.
John W. Hartmann, Roberts’ attorney, recounted the circumstances leading to the tragic event during a court session last Thursday. He revealed that the violence was an escalation of a Facebook argument, according to NJ.com.
Hartmann explained that Roberts, now 23, was urged by his mother and sister to “get down to Kingsbury”—the apartment area where Sequoya was playing—after a physical altercation involving his sister broke out, rooted in the online conflict. Upon his arrival, Roberts was informed of a “family nemesis,” who police say was his original target.
Roberts retrieved a 9 mm pistol from an apartment and then saw the “family nemesis” outside, whom he believed had a handgun as well, per Hartmann. Roberts opened fire and struck Sequoya as she tried running away with her brother. Their mother was outside at the time and tried aiding her, along with local residents, before police arrived.
“He shot off two rounds first, everybody scattered, and then he shot off another four rounds and my daughter got hit,” said Sequoya’s mother, Sacha Bacon-Jones, in a 2022 interview with Philadelphia CBS affiliate KYW.
“I run up and my baby is laying on the ground covered in blood,” Bacon-Jones recounted, describing Sequoya as her “little girl,” per KYW. “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.”
Hartmann said Thursday that Roberts did not intend to harm Sequoya, NJ.com reports. He said his client, however, did show a reckless disregard for human life that warranted the manslaughter charge.
Bacon-Jones described the beef that sparked the shooting as “stupid Facebook stuff” while speaking to reporters at a press conference after her daughter’s death.
“Now all I have are memories I can’t make anymore,” Bacon-Jones said.
As part of his plea deal, Roberts will spend between 15 and 18 years in prison, according to NJ.com. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.