Connecticut Teen Murdered While Aiding His Older Brother Who Had Been Shot
A 15-year-old teen was trying to help his brother when he was shot in the back by a convicted felon in New Haven, Connecticut.
Discovery [screenshot from ID's True Conviction S4]
“True Conviction” explores how homicides are solved on the street and won in the courtroom. Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, a decorated Brooklyn homicide prosecutor, travels across the country to reveal how the nation's top prosecutors tackled their toughest cases. In the season premiere, March 8 at 10/9c, the prosecutor takes on the murder of 15-year-old Jacob Craggett.
Jacob Craggett was just days away from starting his sophomore year of high school in August 2014 when he was fatally wounded in the crossfire of a shooting near his grandmother’s home.
Jacob, and his 23-year-old brother, Joshua, were reportedly riding in a car with two other people when gunfire broke out at the intersection of Vernon Street and Davenport Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut.
According to The Register Citizen, two suspects shot into the car 13 times when it was stopped at an intersection. Jacob jumped out of the backseat of the car to open the front passenger door to help his brother. It was then that two more shots reportedly rang out and struck the teen in the back.
A Life Cut Short
The brothers were transported to a nearby hospital, though the boys’ mother, Lisa Craggett, told NBC Connecticut that it took more than half an hour for an ambulance to arrive.
Jacob died from his injuries. Bullets had hit Joshua’s liver, lungs, and kidney, and he spent two weeks in the hospital.
According to the New Haven Register, Joshua remembered Jacob as a happy kid who had just gotten a haircut the day he was killed. Joshua also recalled that Jacob was excited and nervous about talking to a girl he’d just met and had wanted to go see her the night of the shooting. He was also looking forward to playing on the varsity football team as a defensive tackle that fall.
Jacob’s death was the second murder for the Craggett family. In 2004, his cousin was shot and killed at the same intersection. The suspect in that case was convicted.
Finding the Killer
Police zeroed in on Lamont Edwards, then 37, as a suspect in the shooting. Edwards, known as “Duce,” was a neighborhood weed dealer with a prior criminal record for assault and robbery. Police arrested Edwards in Greenwich, Connecticut, just three days after the shooting. He had reportedly married his girlfriend at the New Haven city hall, and the pair was headed to California “until he cleared his name,” according to the New Haven Register.
Edwards was arrested on a parole violation that night and remained in jail until police had enough evidence to charge him in Jacob’s case in June 2015.
In 2017, Edwards was found guilty of the murder and other charges related to the shooting. He was sentenced to 85 years in prison.
Hear from the detective who wouldn’t give up on finding Jacob’s killer when "True Conviction” returns for season 4 on March 8 at 10/9c on ID and stream the first three seasons on discovery+.
