District Attorney Matt Wareham announced that Kenneth Jatrell Ward, age 34 of New Bern, and Destiny Nicole Green, age 30 of New Bern, both pled guilty to Second-Degree Murder for their involvement in the death of Muzungu Muteba, age 30 of New Bern, in Craven County Superior Court on October 29, 2025. Ward received an active sentence of 252-315 months while Green received an active sentence of 192-243 months in the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. Ward and Green were the final defendants to be sentenced in this matter as co-defendants Rahlik Bryant and Quinzell Sanders entered guilty pleas at an earlier time. <\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
On February 2, 2020 at approximately 7:50 P.M., officers with the New Bern Police Department responded to the report of a gunshot and suspicious activity in the area of Don Miller Memorial Park. Patrol units arrived and located the victim unconscious with a single gunshot wound to his chest. Muteba was transported to Carolina East Medical Center where he was pronounced dead from that wound. <\/p>\n
The investigation revealed that Ward, Green, and their co-defendants planned to conduct a robbery of Muteba, as he was known to carry cash. Green was to pretend to go on a date with Muteba and during the date, Ward, Bryant and Saunders would carry out the robbery. Bryant provided the .38 caliber revolver for Saunders to use in the robbery. Green contacted Muteba and arranged the date. Upon Muteba picking up Green, they drove to a grocery store where Muteba purchased food and wine for their date. Ward, Saunders, and Bryant followed behind Muteba\u2019s vehicle in Green\u2019s vehicle all the way to the park. Green and Ward were in communication via text message the entire time. <\/p>\n
When Green notified Ward that they were there; Ward, Saunders, and Bryant approached Muteba\u2019s vehicle. Saunders pointed the gun at Muteba and Ward and Saunders pulled Muteba out of the vehicle. Bryant and Green began searching Muteba\u2019s car while Ward and Saunders began searching Muteba. During their search of Muteba, Saunders struck Muteba with the gun causing Muteba to fight back. Once Muteba started to fight back by swinging his belt at them, Saunders shot Muteba in the chest. <\/p>\n
Ward, Saunders, and Bryant fled and ran to where they parked Green\u2019s vehicle, while Green stayed for a few minutes before running to meet them. Ward\u2019s ankle monitor revealed his presence at the park at the time of the shooting and it was used to locate him afterwards, where he was arrested along with Green and Bryant. Saunders was arrested at his home a short time later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"District Attorney Matt Wareham announced that Kenneth Jatrell Ward, age 34 of New Bern, and Destiny Nicole Green,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[104,1655,1654,107,1202],"class_list":{"0":"post-26540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bern","8":"tag-bern","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-eastern-nc","11":"tag-new-bern","12":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116181927381015658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}