New Haven Man Charged In April Double Homicide Held On $5M Bail: PD

NEW HAVEN, CT —A 39-year-old New Haven man is charged with murder in an April 1 "targeted" double homicide, police announced.

New Haven investigators tied Cadell Harris to the slayings on Winthrop Avenue with video, witness statements, and DNA and ballistic evidence, police said Thursday.

It was 7:55 a.m. on the first of April when nine rounds of gunfire woke neighbors in the Winthrop and Goffe Street-area, leading to numerous 911 calls to police, New Haven police spokesperson Capt. Rose Dell said at the time. Thursday police explained that those calls included witnesses saying a man was in the middle of the roadway with a firearm. Patrol officers arrived and the man as described by 911 callers, now identified as Harris, did not have a firearm but was "uncooperative and belligerent" with officers "showing great restraint," before placing him under arrest.

The fatal double-shooting was captured on video by a bystander, police said.

Police found two gunshot victims in a parked Acura MDX mid-block on Winthrop and a gun nearby, police said.

The driver, identified as 40-year-old Marquis Darnell McNeil, was pronounced dead on the scene. The passenger, 28-year-old Jonathan Garcia, was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly after being admitted, Dell said.

The Garcia family was at a police news briefing Thursday, including his mother, Jessica Alvarez, who broke down and wept as she came to the podium.

"My son was taken from me. He was murdered," she said, noting that morning, she, "received the worst phone call a mother could receive." A call, she said, that "haunts her to this day."

Harris was charged with two counts of murder, criminal possession of a firearm and carrying a pistol without a permit. His bail is set at $5 million. Harris was set to be arraigned Thursday.

At the time of the double-homicide, New Haven Chief of Police Karl Jacobson he, "Detest(s) this senseless loss of life through gun violence."