Slain South Brunswick Pastor's Wife Pleads for Killer's Identity

With her voice quavering, Michelle Hughes pleaded for anyone who may know the identity of her husband's killer to step forward.

"Somebody knows what happened. Somebody knows the truth. We can no longer house this criminal. He has to come out," she said Thursday at Paradise Baptist Church in Newark, where a gathering of 20 some pastors, just like her husband, had surrounded her at the pulpit for support.

"I want to make a plea," Hughes continued with tears in her eyes. "Look deep into your conscious and turn yourself in."

Hughes' husband Donald Hughes, a pastor at Bethlehem Judah Christian Fellowship in Elizabeth who has been leading a congregation in South Brunswick that was prepared to move to New Brunswick shortly, was gunned down in Newark on Good Friday as he was unloading from his car groceries meant for a large Easter Sunday feast for his family, according to a The shooting incident occurred at Spruce and Broome streets after he had come to the rescue of a female relative who was accosted by a suspected robber who then shot Hughes dead.

The clergy members came to give the Hughes family support, especially since Hughes was a fellow man of God, said Jethro James, a bishop at the Paradise Baptist Church.

City officials such as Councilwoman Mildred Crump also came to the gathering to lend support.

"We have to become a neighborhood again," said James. "We need to take the hood out of neighborhood."

Over 30 people held a vigil in Hughes' honor in Newark Tuesday afternoon and protested the violence near his home,

James said there's a $10,000 award leading to the arrest of the suspected killer.

There were no new reports on any arrests or developments on the case Friday.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Essex County Prosecutor Office's tips hotline at 877-847-7432 or the Newark Police Department hotline at 877-NWK-TIPS (695-8477) or 877-NWK-GUNS (695-4867). All calls will be kept confidential.