Former NJ Man Gets Life In Prison For Killing Aspiring NYC Rapper

HACKENSACK, NJ — A former New Jersey man was sentenced to life in prison for a second time in connection with the 2011 killing of an aspiring Brooklyn rapper, according to authorities and a report.

Randy Manning, formerly of Englewood, will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of murder, arson, desecration of human remains, and weapons offenses in connection with the August 2011 death of 33-year-old Rhian "Kampane" Stoute, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said this week. Manning was convicted in June following a six-week trial.

Manning, a Trinidad and Tobago native, was initially convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2014. However, in 2020, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to toss the conviction and retry the case after it found prosecutors hadn’t obtained a warrant before searching Manning's cell phone’s records and location data, NorthJersey.com reported.

According to prosecutors, Manning shot Stoute to death at a vacant home in Englewood on Aug. 15, 2011. Prosecutors said Manning returned several hours later and set Stoute's body on fire before he hid it in an SUV, drove the SUV to Paramus and abandoned the vehicle on a quiet residential street.

Prosecutors said Manning then threw pieces of evidence into the sewers in Paramus and Brooklyn. The evidence was later found by law enforcement, prosecutors said.

"There is nothing more cowardly, nothing more cowardly, than shooting someone in the back," Assistant Prosecutor Gary Donatello said during Manning's sentencing, according to NorthJersey.com. "And that is exactly what this defendant did. He shot another human, another person full of life, in the back and killed him."

Defense attorneys argued for a 30-year sentence, reports said; however, Superior Court Judge Gary Wilcox called the killing an "abhorrent and horrible act."

“He didn’t sound like he was talking about somebody that he loved," Wilcox said, according to NorthJersey.com. "He sounded jealous and angry."