SAYREVILLE, N.J. (AP) — Nicole Teliano used to play video games on her cellphone within the Mayor’s Workplace at Sayreville Borough Corridor whereas her mom tended to the tedious, typically acrimonious job of serving in native authorities.
The 11-year-old didn’t thoughts sharing her mom, councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, with residents of the central New Jersey city, these she pastored at a prosperity gospel church in Newark or the Nigerian church colleague she married in Abuja in November.
“Nicely, my mother was somewhat bit of additional, so I may share somewhat bit. There was sufficient to go round,” Nicole mentioned in a household interview with The Related Press this month, as family members search solutions after the 30-year-old Dwumfour was gunned down on Feb. 1.
The case is reverberating from New Jersey to West Africa, with touchpoints together with politics, faith and cash that echo throughout continents.
“She was a councilwoman, who simply received murdered, brutally,” household Pastor Karl Badu of The Church of Pentecost mentioned. “It’s simply not widespread for anyone to come back residence from work and be ambushed in her car parking zone.”
Dwumfour’s dad and mom and new husband Peter Ezechukwu — who hoped to hitch his spouse within the U.S. this spring however as a substitute got here for her funeral — are annoyed by the continued silence from officers.
The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Workplace mentioned it wants to guard the integrity of the investigation. Household lawyer John Wisniewski is aware of that it may take time to look at every part from Dwumfour’s cellphone information to the bitter squabbles that surfaced on council to her work along with her church, Champions Royal Meeting. Together with his assist, the household lastly met with investigators in March.
He believes they’re “taking a look at every part.”
Simply earlier than the capturing, Dwumfour dropped off a housemate after a visit to the grocery retailer. She lived within the residence advanced, Camelot at La Mer, along with her daughter and two church pals, the household mentioned.
“We have been ready for my mother to search for a parking area, after which, she was taking a variety of time, so we began calling her time and again and over, however it wouldn’t choose up, after which we heard gunshots, and we began calling the police,” mentioned Nicole, who had dinner prepared for her mom. “I assumed it was fireworks.”
Neighbors noticed a person argue with Dwumfour at her driver’s aspect window, then open hearth earlier than working towards the close by Backyard State Parkway and disappearing.
“Eunice was too good of an individual to let (her dying) go unanswered,” Mayor Victoria Kilpatrick mentioned at a Feb. 8 memorial service, the place lots of mourned the fashionable preacher referred to as “Pastor Eunney_K.”
Dwumfour, the eldest of 5 born to Ghanaian immigrants, had been lively in Christian ministry since she was a teen. She graduated from Newark public colleges and earned a level in ladies’s research from William Paterson College in 2017.
In marketing campaign materials, she mentioned she had labored as a enterprise analyst earlier than shifting to Sayreville in 2017. She received a detailed race for metropolis council in 2021, working on a Republican ticket with church colleague Christian Onuoha. Their victory left council with a 3-3 break up as a substitute of a 5-1 Democratic majority. Tensions typically ran excessive.
“It’s 2023 and my prayer for everybody is that our mindset will change,” Dwumfour mentioned on the first assembly in January.
Most of Dwumfour’s time, although, appeared dedicated to her church, which met a number of occasions per week above a Goodwill retailer in Newark.
“God loves a cheerful giver!” she mentioned in a 2017 sermon posted on-line, extolling a central tenet of the prosperity gospel theology.
Champions Royal Meeting founder Joshua Iginla — who married Dwumfour and Ezechukwu in November — oversees an 80,000-seat church in Abuja, travels by non-public jet and typically provides away automobiles and money to widows and others on his birthday, in accordance with his social media posts. He additionally has a rising base in Johannesburg and a house in New Jersey.
However courtroom data and tax filings recommend cash was tight within the church’s newer U.S. operations. Dwumfour, as an officer, had been named in a collection of landlord-tenant disputes in Newark courting from 2017 to 2020 involving a associated church entity, the Fireplace Congress Fellowship. That entity had seen its earnings drop from about $250,000 in 2017 to simply $350 in 2020.
And an eviction warrant had been sought on Jan. 3 for her Camelot unit earlier than property managers dismissed the case on Jan. 16. That very same month, Dwumfour wrote on LinkedIn that she was in search of a brand new job. She made $5,000 a yr for her council work, and didn’t seem to take a wage from the church. Nicole thinks her mother additionally did some work as a nurse assistant.
Dwumfour had beforehand stayed at a second Camelot unit that’s listed because the enterprise handle for each church entities. Pastor Osi King, a regional church administrator linked to that unit, didn’t return calls in search of remark.
Onuoha, who held the lease on the Camelot unit the place Dwumfour was staying when she died, had hoped she would possibly quickly take over the residence.
“I used to be simply so joyful that she was married,” Onuoha advised the AP. She gave the impression to be in “an excellent place.”
But Nicole was much less certain.
“That week, she began appearing unhappy,” Nicole mentioned. She requested what was improper, and her mom mentioned, ’It’s simply work. It’s loads.’
“I knew it was one thing else,” she mentioned quietly.
Dwumfour’s husband spoke along with her from Abuja an hour earlier than she died. “(It was) simply regular: ‘I like you.’ ‘How are you?’” Ezechukwu, 36, mentioned.
On the Jan. 3 council assembly, tempers had flared over management assignments earlier than Onuoha was named council president and Dwumfour the general public security chairperson. She urged concord within the new yr.
“I’m not right here due to the (Republican) get together or some other factor. I’m right here as a result of I used to be appointed right here by God., … and I’m right here for my conscience,” Dwumfour mentioned.
On April 10, Sayreville Mayor Victoria Kilpatrick introduced she won’t search reelection, citing security considerations and a threatening letter she was despatched.
Ezechukwu, as a substitute of a brand new life with Dwumfour, has solely recollections and cellphone images of their four-year romance. “Nigerians … need to know, ’What actually occurred?” he mentioned. “We want justice for her.”
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Related Press reporter Michael Rubinkam contributed to this report from Sayreville and AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft contributed from New York. Observe Authorized Affairs Author Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale
