June 10, 2015
Man Who Killed Prom Queen Enters Guilty Plea
Newark – Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray announced today that Al-Muqqadin Means, 20, of East Orange pleaded guilty yesterday to murdering 17-year-old Aquilla Flood at her East Orange apartment a week before she was to be crowned prom queen.
Yesterday, 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.
Assistant Prosecutor Naazneen Khan, who handled the case, said, “This is very sad case because the defendant not only tragically took the life of a promising young girl but he also destroyed his own life.’’
Means is scheduled to be sentenced on July 21 at 9 a.m. before the Honorable Ronald D. Wigler, Presiding Criminal Court Judge in Essex County.
The victim was found dead from a single gun shot wound on June 5, 2013. Flood was voted prom queen by her classmates and was scheduled to receive her crown just days before she was killed. A senior, she was also scheduled to graduate. About a month before the murder, Flood broke up with Means. In the weeks leading up to the prom he began to threaten her after she refused to go to the prom with him.
