A vigil on Grant Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive in Jersey City turned deadly in the early hours of July 27, 2021. About 1 a.m., gunfire erupted while mourners had gathered to honor a young man killed over the preceding weekend. Responding officers found 30-year-old Felicia Stewart suffering from at least one gunshot wound to her back. She was taken to Jersey City Medical Center and pronounced dead at 2:02 a.m.; the Regional Medical Examiner’s Office later listed cause of death as a gunshot wound to the abdomen and ruled it a homicide.

Felicia Stewart, a mother of four who worked at FedEx, was remembered by family and friends as kind and loving. Authorities quickly developed a suspect and an arrest warrant was issued for 26-year-old Mark Stewart of Jersey City; he is not related to Felicia. On the Saturday after the shooting he turned himself in to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit and was charged with aggravated manslaughter and weapons offenses, then held at the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance.

If anyone attended the vigil or has information about the shooting, please come forward and share what was seen or heard.