New Jersey man convicted of 2016 murder of rookie Rikers guard

October 21, 2019 Noah Goldberg

Bullet holes in the driver's window of Alastasia Bryan's car. Image courtesy of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office

Share this:

A New Jersey man was convicted on Monday for the 2016 murder of his ex-girlfriend outside her home in Bergen Beach.

Keon Richmond tracked 25-year-old Alastasia Bryan’s movements with a GPS device he placed on her car days before the murder, prosecutors said during the trial. Bryan was getting ready to travel from her home in Brooklyn to her night shift as a guard on Rikers Island on Dec. 4, 2016, when Richmond walked up to her car and shot her five times from point blank range, killing her.

“This defendant meticulously planned this cowardly and cold-blooded killing, tracking Officer Alastasia Bryan’s movements and executing her during an evening ambush,” said District Attorney Eric Gonzalez in a statement. “Her life was taken far too soon and hopefully, her heartbroken family, friends and fellow correction officers find some measure of justice in the jury’s verdict.”

Richmond and Bryan had dated on and off in the years before the murder, but by Dec. 4, 2016, they were no longer together.

Richmond drove to Bryan’s home that night from New Jersey in his new girlfriend’s car. He circled the block and waited as Bryan said goodbye to her mother before work, then parked his car directly across from hers, prosecutors said at trial.

“He waited and he waited, until the moment was just right,” said Assistant District Attorney Olatokunbo Olaniyan at trial. “He came up behind her [car], approached the driver’s window where she was seated and he reached out his .38 revolver and fired.”

Richmond’s girlfriend, Shirley Mejia, allegedly had stored the car at a mechanic’s shop in New Jersey. Richmond removed the car’s plates.

Mejia was charged with hindering prosecution. Her case is awaiting trial. Richmond faces up to 40 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 4, 2019 — three years to the date after the murder.