Camden man arraigned in slaying

Last Wednesday night, two weeks after surgery for a brain tumor the "size of a golf ball," Jamal Burgess and a buddy sat in a Chevrolet Uplander on a Camden street.

Burgess, 33, of Camden, saw an acquaintance from the Centerville neighborhood approaching the vehicle.

"Yo, here comes Poo-Poo," Burgess said, referring to Samad Land, the friend later told police.

Seconds later, Land, 19, and his cousin Martell Land, 18, fired at the SUV parked on South Eighth Street, according to court records and the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Burgess, in the passenger seat, was hit in the chest. Driver Kareem Watkins, his friend, fired back and wounded Martell Land in the upper thigh, according to court documents. Samad Land was shot in the abdomen.

Watkins then drove Burgess to Cooper University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than 10 minutes later.

The Lands have been charged with murder and attempted murder, the Prosecutor's Office said yesterday. Martell Land, who has pleaded not guilty to both charges, is being held in the Camden County Jail after failing to post $500,000 bail. Samad Land remains hospitalized at Cooper.

"This is a strong case," Assistant Prosecutor Mary Alison Albright said at Martell Land's arraignment yesterday.

Two witnesses, including Watkins, identified the Lands, officials said. If convicted, the cousins face life in prison on the murder charge and up to 20 years for attempted murder.

More than a dozen family members and friends of Burgess' and the Lands' filed into Martell Land's hearing before Judge Thomas A. Brown Jr.

"Jamal was a family man," said LaCreia Williams, 31, a friend. "He loved his family."

She said Burgess was the father of four children, ages 6 to 17, and recently had become engaged to his girlfriend of 17 years, LaSheina Bennett.

Burgess, who had worked in construction, recently got out of a halfway house after serving the balance of a two-year sentence on drug charges, Bennett said.

He was recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor, which doctors discovered after he had a seizure and complained of persistent headaches. Burgess had been scheduled to start radiation treatment the day after his death, Bennett said. Chemotherapy would have begun today, she said.

Martell Land called 911 after he and his cousin ran to the corner of Ferry Avenue and Kossuth Street, not far from the shooting. Martell Land turned himself in on Monday. Authorities wouldn't say why the men had allegedly opened fire.

As his baby-faced client sat next to him, attorney Jeffrey C. Zucker successfully argued against a request that bail be set at $750,000 for Martell Land, who last year was charged with drug offenses as a juvenile.

"It was my client who called the ambulance," Zucker said in an interview.