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Harlem Mother Investigates Son's Murder as Witnesses Stay Silent

By DNAinfo Staff on February 1, 2012 6:46am

Harlem mother Sharon Cherry combs Facebook and other websites for potential clues to her son George White's unsolved murder.
Harlem mother Sharon Cherry combs Facebook and other websites for potential clues to her son George White's unsolved murder.
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DNAinfo/Jon Schuppe

By Shayna Jacobs and Jon Schuppe

DNAinfo Staff

HARLEM — For 16 months, Sharon Cherry has lived not only with her teenage son’s murder, but with the knowledge that several people saw the crime unfold and none have turned the gunman in.

“No one’s saying anything,” Cherry, 43, said.

At least twice, authorities had in custody young men believed to have seen 15-year-old George White’s killing on West 140th Street. They refused to snitch, even if doing so would ease their own legal troubles.

One of those cases was revealed in Manhattan Supreme Court last week, when a prosecutor described how a 17-year-old was captured on surveillance video which showed White getting shot in the chest.

The teenager, who is facing a possible prison sentence for an unrelated charge of gun possession, declined to help the murder investigation.

“In the video [the teenager] is seen. It is clear that he can see the shooters,” Assistant District Attorney Lucy Cutolo told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin.

She added, “When he spoke to [the detective], he was uncooperative and he would not name who the shooter was.”

DNAinfo is withholding the teenager’s name because he remains a potential witness. That alone could jeopardize his safety, which is thought to be a major reason why witnesses decline to come forward. In a written statement to police, the teenager described the sense of fear and paranoia that led him to arm himself.

"I had brought the weapon because I don’t feel safe to walk around thru Harlem,” he wrote.

A second potential witness would not share information after getting arrested in a gang takedown, and ended up with a 15-year prison sentence.

A spokesman for the NYPD said Tuesday there had been no arrests in the case. Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they had identified any suspects.

Cherry, meanwhile, struggles to maintain hope.

Out of frustration — and to keep herself from “going insane” — Cherry has tried investigating the case herself.

She has obtained a still from a security camera showing White walking on the street a few minutes before he was shot.

She goes online and finds young neighborhood rappers whose lyrics, she tells herself, refer to her son's murder.

And, using a bogus name, Cherry trawls Facebook for photographs of people she believes have connections to the crime.

She saved one picture of someone she says is a member of the “40 Wolves” street gang and who fought with White days before the killing. Another picture, she said, is of someone rumored to be the gunman.

“I believe it in my heart that he was lured onto that block to get shot in the chest,” Cherry said.

After the fight, White, a 10th grader at Frederick Douglass Academy and an aspiring boxer, told his mother, “Mom, I’m not going to be here too long.”

He asked her questions about organ donations. But Cherry didn’t take it too seriously. Her son had been talking about death since he was a young boy.

“He knew his time was limited,” Cherry said. “He just wanted to survive. He just wanted to make it.”

When he was killed, White was heading home from the wake of a murdered friend who was part of a group that called itself “Young Bosses,” Cherry said. After George’s death, Cherry said she found some papers about the "Young Bosses" in his dresser drawer.

But authorities are uncomfortable labeling the murder as gang-motivated, sources said.

The unanswered questions leave Cherry to wrestle with her memories from the night of the shooting.

They begin with a neighbor calling to tell her White was in trouble. Cherry rushed out the door of her apartment building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and found her son on the pavement, surrounded by medics. He’d collapsed at the doorstep.

When medics wouldn't let her ride in the ambulance, she knew her son was dead.

As the months passed, she took down many of the family portraits of White from her living room wall. Too painful to look at, she said.

Every week, she calls the case's detective and prosecutor hoping for encouraging news. They assure her that they're still following leads.

“All I know is I want some justice,” Cherry said. “I want the guys who did this to pay.”