They accuse a teenager and a military man for the murder of a young soldier who disappeared in New York | The State

Photo:
US Army Criminal Investigation Command / Courtesy

A 16-year-old teenager and a 23-year-old soldier were charged with the kidnapping and murder of Hayden Harris (20), an army corporal who disappeared in Fort Drum (NY) and later found shot and buried under the snow in New Jersey, in December.

Private Jamaal Mellish and an unidentified teenager were charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and weapons charges in Harris’s death, the Sussex County (NJ) prosecutor’s office said Monday.

Harris, a native of Tennessee, was reported missing from Fort Drum military base on Dec. 18. A day later, firefighters in Byram Township (NJ) discovered her body in a wooded area after a report about blood and a pair of shoes in the area.

The soldier had a gunshot wound to the head. Authorities immediately arrested Brooklyn resident Mellish, who was placed in military custody in Oneida County (NJ).

The suspected teen is being held at a juvenile facility, the prosecutor’s office said.

Harris grew up dreaming of joining the military, family friends said. He enlisted in March 2019 and had been stationed at the upstate New York base since that July.

A motive in the case and the exact location of the crime have not been revealed. Prosecutors did not provide additional information about the teenager, nor did they say how he knew the two soldiers, it reported. New York Post.