Trentonian
June 29, 2015
When the time came for Keyon Powell to speak to the family of a slain Hamilton woman, he remained silent and told the judge he wished not to speak.
There was little for the convicted killer to say at his sentencing Friday in Mercer County Superior Court.
Powell’s attorney, Keith Massey, already staked his client’s position in court papers attempting to withdraw his guilty plea: His client is innocent although he copped to the crime in accepting prosecutors’ plea deal for aggravated manslaughter, and he plans to appeal.
In truth, nothing is bringing back 21-year-old Danielle Schrenk. Her family is now forced to visit Schrenk in a cemetery, where they speak to her headstone.
Despite her death, Schrenk lives on through the six people who received her organs, her family said.
“You are an angel, good or bad,” the woman’s aunt said in reading a statement from the family. “You are our angel. You’re in God’s hands now. Our memories are filled with tears.”
Schrenk was gunned down in Ewing on Feb. 3, 2013, the victim of “another senseless murder” prosecutors said began as a dispute with Powell over drugs.
Schrenk and a group of men were purchasing marijuana from Powell when the drug deal went south.
Powell was forced out of the vehicle. That’s when, prosecutors, said he pulled out a handgun and fired into the car, striking Schrenk in the back. She later died at the hospital.
Powell, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and a Muslim skull cap, did not react when Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez handed down the negotiated sentenced of 19 years.
The plea deal was reached to spare Schrenk’s family of a trial, Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Korngut said.
They did not want to be forced to “resurrect” the pain they endured as they watched Schrenk fade away at the hospital after she was placed on life support.