Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office

                                 25 Kirkpatrick Street, 3rd Floor, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901 (732) 745-3300

 

                              *News Release*                 Date: May 27, 2011

 
 

       

 

 

 

 

 

Edison man sentenced for murder, child endangerment

 

          Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan announced today that an Edison man has been sentenced to serve 30 years in a New Jersey state prison for strangling a North Brunswick woman in her apartment and then abandoning their 20-month-old daughter at a gas station in Delaware.

 

Dwayne Jackson (DOB 10/28/84) of 3 Weldon Road, Edison was ordered to serve the full 30 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole, but that term was reduced by 457 days he has spent in custody since his arrest.

 

During a hearing on May 26, 2011, in the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick, Superior Court Judge Bradley Ferencz also fined Jackson $5,000, and said the penalty will reimburse the state’s Victims of Crime Compensation Board, which paid for the victim’s funeral.

 

Jackson was sentenced after he pleaded guilty on April 14, 2011,

to counts of murder and endangering the welfare of a child, admitting that he choked Patricia Belizaire, 25, in her North Brunswick apartment on February 21, 2010, and then drove their daughter, 20-month-old Hanna Belizaire Jackson, to Newark, Del. and abandoned her in a gas station restroom.

 

          Jackson pleaded guilty after reaching a plea agreement with Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Sheree Pitchford.

 

          An investigation by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and the North Brunswick Police Department determined that after killing Ms. Belizaire, Jackson drove the victim victim to Ramapo, N.Y., where her body was set on fire in a park shortly before 5:22 a.m. on February 22, 2010.

 

In Delaware, Jackson was charged with first degree reckless endangering for leaving the child at a Shell service station on South College Avenue on February 21, 2010.

 

The child was identified after her photograph was published by the news media. She remains in the custody of relatives.

 

A co-defendant, Ritu Loi, (DOB 11/19/83) of New Brunswick, was sentenced on May 9, 2011, to serve a probationary term of five years for helping Jackson abandon his daughter, and then trying to protect him from police before they charged him with murdering the toddler’s mother.