Two men have been arrested and charged with murdering Freehold Borough native Rodney Keys, 39, on Throckmorton Street, Freehold Borough, on May 3, 2008.
Monmouth County First Assistant Prosecutor Peter E. Warshaw Jr. said Terrell Ryans, 23, of Trenton, and Brandon Montes, 29, of New York City, were arrested and charged with shooting and fatally wounding Keys.
Keys, who was living in Asbury Park at the time of his murder, was shot as he sat in a car on Throckmorton Street shortly after 2 a.m. on May 3, 2008. Authorities have now said the crime may have been gangrelated. No further information on that aspect of the crime was provided.
Ryans and Montes were charged with murdering Keys, and they were each charged with the attempted murder of Keys’ friend, Tyrone Ellis, 38, of Asbury Park, who was injured in the shooting incident.
The shooting has been under investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Freehold Borough Police Department for almost two years.
According to Warshaw, Ryans was taken into custody on Feb. 2 at a Trenton residence and is being held at the Monmouth County jail, Freehold Township.
The shooter, identified by Warshaw as Montes, was arrested on Feb. 25 and taken into custody in Manhattan. Montes remains in a New York jail, according to the first assistant prosecutor.
Keys was a 1987 graduate of Freehold High School. He is survived by three teenage children.
Assisting the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Freehold Borough Police Department in the investigation were members of the New York Police Department, the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, the United States Marshal’s Office, the Trenton Police Department, the Hamilton Township Police Department, the East Windsor Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.