In the early hours of a Tuesday in Jersey City, a gathering meant to honor a life lost to gun violence became the scene of another tragedy. On July 27, 2021, 30-year-old Felicia Stewart was attending a vigil on Grant Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive. The crowd had come together to remember a young man who had been the victim of a shooting over the weekend.
Suddenly, the solemn atmosphere was shattered by the sound of gunfire, and chaos erupted as shots were fired into the group of mourners.
When police responded to reports of the shooting shortly before 1 a.m., they found Felicia Stewart suffering from at least one gunshot wound to her back. She was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 2:02 a.m. The Regional Medical Examiner's Office would later determine that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the abdomen and ruled it a homicide. Felicia, a mother of four, was an employee at FedEx and was remembered by her loved ones as a kind and loving individual.
The investigation into her death quickly led authorities to a suspect. An arrest warrant was issued for 26-year-old Mark Stewart of Jersey City. Despite sharing a last name, he and Felicia were not related. On the Saturday following the shooting, Mark Stewart turned himself in to detectives with the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office Homicide Unit. He was subsequently arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter and weapons offenses. He was then held at the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance.
