ValareeMurder1.jpg

Two New Rochelle High School Students Plead Guilty to Stalking Schoolmate Before Her Death

Written By: Robert Cox

WHITE PLAINS, NY — Dominique Slack, 18, and Carl Booker, 18, both pleaded guilty to Stalking in the First Degree, a class D violent felony, for their roles in an incident resulting in the stabbing death of 16-year-old New Rochelle High School student Valaree Schwab. 

Westchester County Court Judge Barry Warhit accepted the plea. Sentencing for Slack and Booker is scheduled for Jan. 25, 2019, and Feb. 22, 2019, respectively.

On Jan. 10, 2018, the defendants, Slack and Booker, while aiding, abetting, and acting in concert with each other, another teen, a juvenile and other unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators, engaged in a course of conduct likely to cause reasonable fear of physical injury and did intentionally cause physical injury to the victim, Valaree Schwab. 

After stalking Schwab for some time, the group of teens, including Booker and Slack, physically confronted and assaulted Schwab on the sidewalk of North Avenue resulting in a serious physical injury to Schwab. At the time of the assault, Schwab dropped her house keys and one of the teens picked them up. Schwab then followed the group to Dunkin’ Donuts, 646 North Avenue, to try to get her keys back and was stabbed inside the restaurant. Schwab was pronounced dead later that day at Jacobi Medical Center, the Bronx.

Charges against Z’inah Brown, 17, including Murder in the Second Degree, are still pending.

A Westchester County Grand Jury indicted Brown, Booker and Slack in March.

Assistant District Attorney Laura Murphy, Chief of the Career Criminal Bureau, and Assistant District Attorney Nicholas DiCostanzo of the Superior court Trial Division are prosecuting the case.