2 Charged In 'Clinton Avenue Five' Cold Case

2 Charged In 'Clinton Avenue Five' Cold Case

Two men have been charged with murder in the disappearance of five teenage

boys who were last seen together on a busy street more than 30 years ago.

The men, whose names haven't been released, were also charged with arson,

the Essex County prosecutor's office said Monday. The prosecutor's office did

not immediately say how the case was solved.

"It's probably the most sensational case this city had in its past, in its history,"

Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said.

The boys, Melvin Pittman and Ernest Taylor, who were both 17, and Alvin

Turner, Randy Johnson, and Michael McDowell, who were all 16, were last

seen on a busy street near a park where they had played basketball on Aug.

20, 1978. They were with a carpenter, Lee Evans, who routinely hired teens to

help him with odd jobs, police have said.

Unlocking The Mystery Of The 'Clinton Avenue Five'

Evans told police at the time that he dropped off the boys on a street corner

near an ice cream parlor. Later that night, Michael McDowell returned home

and changed clothes, then returned to a waiting pickup truck with at least one

other boy inside. That was the last confirmed sighting of any of the teens.

Evans was repeatedly interviewed in the months after the disappearances but

passed a polygraph examination and was cleared as a suspect.

Four of the boys were from Newark. McDowell had recently moved to East

Orange.

McDowell's aunt, Helen Simmons, called the arrests "a bittersweet victory" on

Monday.

"After 30 years, you're no longer grieving, but you're still wondering,"

Simmons told CBS 2 HD back in May of 2009.

The boys were never heard from and left no trace of evidence.

Johnson's mother said 10 years after her son disappeared that she especially

missed him around 9 p.m., "when I could always hear the basketball bouncing,

bouncing, bouncing as he walked home from the park."
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