A bloody weekend highlights Camden's continuing trauma
Last Sunday was girls' night for Aleshia Schmincke Hill, who spent the evening with her mother, grandmother, and sister in her mom's South Jersey home.
Last Sunday was girls' night for Aleshia Schmincke Hill, who spent the evening with her mother, grandmother, and sister in her mom's South Jersey home.
A waitress who worked six days a week, Hill, 25, was looking forward to her Monday off, and around 7 p.m. Dawn Schmincke drove her daughter back to the East Camden home Hill shared with her fiance.
Sometime over the next 18 hours, someone shot Hill and John Valerio, 23, at close range in their home, then disappeared before the bodies were found the next afternoon.
No arrests have been made, but law enforcement sources and people close to the couple said they believed the killings were committed by someone they let into the house and who went there looking for drugs or cash.
"They took her engagement ring off her finger," Dawn Schmincke said. The couple had planned to move into an apartment in Pennsauken in two weeks, she said. "She wanted us to go shopping for curtains."
Less than a mile away from Hill and Valerio, in another East Camden home, the strained relationship between Iris Sánchez, 38, and her troubled son, Pedro Mercado, 22, reached a breaking point two days before. The two shared a cramped room with Mercado's sister, and during a dispute, police said Mercado fired a bullet into his mother's stomach. He was arrested hours later.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it," he said when Camden County sheriff's officers approached him at gunpoint, according to a police filing. "I didn't mean to shoot her."
The homicides, three of four that took place in Camden last weekend, illustrate the challenges that persist in the city of 77,000, many of which stem from entrenched poverty and an economy long dependent on drug sales and other crime.
Authorities acknowledge that police patrols can do little to prevent domestic violence or crimes that occur indoors, as many of Camden's do now that police have increased community patrols. The bloody weekend brought this year's number of killings to nine - up from five at this time last year.
"We are watching Camden, as a city, reenact its own trauma," said Dan Rhoton, director of Hopeworks 'N Camden, a nonprofit that trains young adults in computer skills and maintains a group home for victims of homelessness and abuse.
"You hear the messages out there: Everything's great now, Camden is fixed, we have new police, we're getting a new waterfront. . . . Let's face this as a sign that we have not fixed things in Camden."
Iris Sánchez was a teenager when she gave birth to Pedro Mercado, said Jose Mercado, who is not related but helped Pedro's grandmother raise the boy. Pedro attended Woodrow Wilson High School but dropped out in his sophomore year, according to the school district.
He lived with Jose Mercado, 56, and his grandmother in a rowhouse on North 11th Street. He got temporary jobs, but nothing stuck. According to Jose Mercado, Pedro showed signs of mental instability, often secluding himself in his upstairs bedroom to smoke cigarettes. At times he lost his temper, at one point knocking down his bedroom door.
In 2015 he became distraught by the death of his grandmother, whom he saw as an "angel," Jose Mercado said.
"It hit him too much in the heart," he said.
Sánchez had tried to be part of her son's life. Last month, she and Pedro's sister moved into his cluttered room, despite their fragile relationship.
Mercado told his mother to move out by April 1, Jose Mercado said. When the day came and she had not left, a dispute flared. Just before 5 p.m., Pedro Mercado pulled a .357 Magnum revolver and shot her once, police say. When officers questioned him, he wept.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m. that Friday, police responded to a report of an unrelated shooting, this one near Cooper Hospital.
They discovered Angel Soltero, 55, lying in the street near Trenton Avenue and Ninth Street. No arrest has been made, and authorities declined to comment on a possible motive for the killing of Soltero, who had children and several grandchildren.
Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson said most of the city's violent crime is not random, and stems from poverty. The department has partnered with community mentoring groups and hosted interventions for young gang members to treat the root causes of the problems.
"We realize that many of the returns upon this investment are long range, but they are critical to changing the dynamics of the environment," he said.
Aleshia Schmincke Hill grew up in Mullica Hill, and lived with her father until she was 14. As a teenager she pushed boundaries and acted out, then moved in with Dawn Schmincke. She became pregnant at 16 and dropped out of school. Hill's father and stepmother have raised her daughter, Schmincke said. Hill's father could not be reached for comment.
Schmincke worried when Hill moved to Camden and began working as a server at local nightclubs, but said her daughter worked hard and seemed to get her life in order. In 2014 she got a job at a Friendly's in Cherry Hill, where she handled at least six shifts a week.
"She never missed a shift, always on time, always ready to fill in," manager Laurie Monk said. "The managers all loved her."
Around that time she met Valerio, a Camden native who attended Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy and who worked as a bouncer at Camden bars. The two became inseparable, but Schmincke had concerns. Valerio was arrested on drug charges in 2013 and 2015, records show. Hill told her mother their home was raided by police last year, and Schmincke suspected Valerio was selling drugs.
"There wasn't much she was telling me, but I'm not stupid," she said.
After last year's arrest, Valerio called Schmincke and apologized.
"He said, 'I'm done with everything, I see the way out,' " she said. "He told me my daughter had turned his life around."
John Florich, Schmincke's fiance, said Valerio never stopped trying to prove himself after that. He got a job at a warehouse, and spent holidays with Hill's family. He proposed on New Year's Eve in Atlantic City. Hill picked out a wedding dress and showed pictures to her coworkers. The couple prepared to move out of Camden.
Hill spent last Sunday morning at Friendly's, serving breakfast from 7 a.m. to noon. If anything was bothering her, she did not show it, coworkers said. From there she went to her mother's house.
As Schmincke drove her daughter back to Camden that night, she said Hill talked about her regret at not finishing high school. She said she was sorry for the trouble she'd caused when she was younger, Schmincke said. They kissed goodbye.
At 10:22 p.m., Hill sent a text. "Mommy, you up?" Schmincke's phone was in the other room. She didn't see it until the next morning.
"When I texted her back, she didn't answer," Schmincke said. "It was her day off. I thought she must have been sleeping."
856-779-3876 @AESteele
