Gang leader gets 30 years in torture-killings

The leader of a gang that tortured and killed a high school student and her boyfriend and buried the couple in a backyard of a Camden rowhouse last year was sentenced today to 30 years in prison.

Kuasheim Powell, 25, pleaded guilty in August to two counts of murder and admitted to taking part in the killings of Muriah Huff, 18, of Cinnaminson, and Michael "Doc Money" Hawkins, 23, on Feb. 22, 2010.

Powell also pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder for shooting and injuring two brothers in an unrelated incident in Pennsauken a day before Huff's and Hawkins' death.

Powell received a 30 year sentence for each murder count in Superior Court in Camden County, and a 20-year sentence for each attempted murder charge from Feb. 21 in a plea deal. The sentences will run concurrently.

Under the plea, Powell agreed to cooperate with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

"The defendant was their peer and he was deaf to their cries of mercy," said Assistant Prosecutor Mary Alison Albright.

Family members pleaded at the sentencing, hoping Superior Court Judge Irvin Snyder would reject the plea deal.

"We're angry about the system that has failed us," said Huff's uncle, Earl Huff, in court.

The 30-year sentence was the miniumum sentence for a murder conviction under New Jersey law, Powell's attorney Richard Sparaco said.

Sparaco said Powell will be given credit for 19 months he served in jail since his arrest earlier last year.

Hawkins was beaten, shot, and fatally stabbed after a gang-related dispute between Hawkins and some defendants of a set of Bloods that Powell led.

But authorities said Muriah Huff, a senior at the Burlington County Institute of Technology, was an innocent bystander. She was pistol-whipped, hit repeatedly with a chair, stabbed, and suffocated with a plastic bag and rope.

"You tortured her for hours before she took her last breath," Huff's cousin, Camile Williams, 35, read from a statement.

Huff, Albright said, "begged to be spared. She begged for her life."

Ten people were charged in connection with the deaths. Four suspects, including Powell, have been sentenced. A fifth suspect, David Hardwick, 19, of Pennsauken, who gave Powell the gun he used to shoot Hawkins several times, will be sentenced later today.

Hardwick pleaded guilty in August to two counts of aggravated manslaughter. Five suspects still have pending cases

Contact staff writer Darran Simon at 856-779-3829 or dsimon@phillynews.com.