Prom Queen Murder: Essex County Man Pleads Guilty

Aquilla Flood will never get the chance to wear her tiara.

Over two years after the 17-year-old student’s shocking murder, Al-Muqqadin Means, 20, of East Orange, pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend a week before she was due to be crowned prom queen.

According to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, Flood broke up with Means about a month before the shooting. In the weeks leading up to the prom, Means began to threaten the queen-to-be after she refused to go to the prom with him.

The high school senior was found dead in her East Orange home from a single gunshot wound on June 5, 2013.

On Tuesday, Means entered a guilty plea to aggravated manslaughter and unlawful possession of a weapon in exchange for a 24-year sentence subject to the No Early Release Act, which requires him to serve 85 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

Means is scheduled to be sentenced on July 21 in Essex County.

File photo via flickr