15-year-old Bronx girl accused of killing 2 men

Sharell Butler

amd umpierre



john_drago



NEW YORK — With her slight frame and big grin, Sharell Butler still looks like a child. But the 15-year-old has been charged as an adult with killing two men over three days, including one whose dismembered remains were found in a garbage bag.

Butler pleaded not guilty over the weekend to second-degree murder in the deaths of 24-year-old Christopher Umpierre on Dec. 19 and 22-year-old John Hopkins-Drago on Dec. 21. She was being held without bail Monday.

Her attorney, Xavier Donaldson, referred to her as "just a kid" and said she is scared. Her father, James Butler, told the Daily News of New York that he believes his daughter is innocent.

Police say Sharrell Butler and others stabbed Hopkins-Drago at an apartment in the Bronx, perhaps as many as 40 times. A superintendent found the dismembered body stuffed in a garbage can outside a building the same day he was killed.

Hopkins-Drago, who had been adopted from a Russian orphanage by a suburban couple, was estranged from his family and had a history of drug arrests, his brother, Patrick Hopkins-Drago, told the Journal News. He had been living on the streets but had not been reported missing.

According to his brother, the victim was apparently trying to turn his life around this fall, hoping to enroll in classes at Westchester Community College outside New York City.

"He didn't deserve what he got," his mother, Ann Marie Hopkins, told the Daily News. "He's just an innocent kid."

Butler is also facing charges of criminal possession of a weapon and criminally negligent homicide in Hopkins-Drago's slaying. Prosecutors say she had a loaded gun at the time of the stabbing.

Officials said Monday that Butler may have killed Hopkins-Drago because she thought he might talk about the death of Umpierre, who was shot to death after a botched robbery at his apartment in the Bronx.

Authorities believe she and another suspect intended to rob Umpierre, but no one else had been charged in that slaying as of Monday.

Butler's nickname was Lady Red, which authorities say may refer to the notorious Bloods street gang. Butler's attorney denied that his client was involved with gang activity.

Four other suspects were in custody Monday in connection with both deaths, including a 23-year-old man suspected of hindering prosecution.

Hopkins-Drago was killed in the 23-year-old's apartment, but it wasn't clear whether the man was there at the time. Officials said he may have tampered with crime scene evidence. It also wasn't clear Monday what roles the other three might have played in the killings.

DAM!! PEOPLE CAIN'T HAVE FUN ANYMORE?? Bronx woman: Perverts ruined my cruise

Come on man!! handle your bussiness Like who in their right mind is going to belive that some strappin' guy like Carter is going to let some punk dude grab his woman's butt and he's standing there video taping it? things that make you go WHAT!!!!


A Bronx woman says perverts turned her Bahamian cruise into a shipwreck, opening her cabin door as she slept naked and grabbing her buttocks on a dance floor.

Jenate Taetz, 27, and her boyfriend, Vlane Carter, 34, said they were sleeping at about 8 a.m. on April 28, when a Norwegian Cruise Line employee opened their locked door.

"I heard noises in the hallway and started to wake up," said Taetz, who has a 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. "I sat up and looked and the guy's standing there with my door wide open staring at me."

Taetz was foggy-eyed but scrambled to cover herself with a blanket, causing the steward to flee, she said.

"The guy was supposedly coming to clean, but I never heard him knock or anything," she said.

The seven-day tour on the Norwegian Spirit only got worse two nights later when the couple went to one of the Miami-based, luxury liner's nightclubs.

A group of apparent underage drinkers lifted Taetz's skirt - and one grabbed her buttocks, the couple said.

Adults under 21 are permitted to drink alcohol in international waters.

"He grabs me and lifts my skirt and grabs my rear," Taetz said.

Carter, an aspiring novelist who works at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, was videotaping and said he captured the harassment.
The quality of the video makes it impossible to tell what was going on, a Daily News review found.

The couple filed reports with cruise line security about both incidents.

"Norwegian told us they were sorry, but to me that's not enough," Taetz said. "They just let them go. They were walking around joking about it."

A Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman said the company believed both complaints had been resolved and said the couple never made a formal complaint with the company.

AnneMarie Matthews, director of public relations, said the steward knocked on the couple's stateroom door before opening it.

"As soon as he realized the couple was there, he closed the door," an e-mail sent to The News reads.

The couple contacted the front desk and spoke with ship management, who spoke to the room steward, an 18-year veteran employee, the statement reads.

Ship security investigated the nightclub incident, but surveillance footage was deemed inconclusive.

"So it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened," the statement reads.

"We take every matter on board our ships seriously and utilize our resources to ensure that guest issues are resolved during their cruise," the statement reads.

If they can't be resolved, the company asks guests to send a formal complaint in writing.

"The couple did not do that, so therefore these matters were considered closed," the statement reads.

The couple's complaint is the second headache for the cruise line in three weeks. A woman plunged to her death from the Bermuda-bound Norwegian Dawn on May 11 as she tried to climb between balconies.

A WOMEN FROM THE BRONX THAT WILL KNOCK YOUR A-S-S- OUT!!

Fellas I know you like those Latin women but here is one if you ever meet you need have a second degree blackbelt or something, Nisa Rodriquez is not to be played with, T4R gives her massive respect and grandstand for her accomplishments. meet her

They come from around the neighborhood to see her hook, that crazy hook. Tough musclemen in gold chains and do-rags, wide-eyed children, the fat señoras who mind the desk downstairs; they crowd the ring at St. Mary’s gym when she fights, watching her move, hoping she’ll do damage. They keep track of her weight, of her training, of her potential, gauging it as if it were their own. “When you gonna fight next?” they ask when they pass her in the hallway. “Yo, Sweet Hands, knock ’em dead.” She grins when they call her that. Sweet Hands. The ring name her mother’s boyfriend gave her because he thought she was too sweet to fight.


At 18, Nisa Rodriguez is five foot eleven and still growing. On the streets of the South Bronx, she comes across as willowy and a little bashful—that is to say, utterly benign. She speaks softly, cushioning consonants with her tongue and letting L’s swim around in her mouth in a way that advertises Spanish as a first language. The boxer emerges only after she’s changed into fighting gear, her tank top exposing the thickness of her arms and the distance they can throw a punch, her hair pulled back tightly, making her fine features more severe, Vaseline smeared over her arms, chest, and face so that her opponents’ gloves slide right off her.


Not long after she stepped into the ring, the crowd got what it was waiting for. Her hook came barreling in, just beyond her opponent’s peripheral vision. She hissed as she threw it—hiss, hiss, hiss—like maracas. Then: the gummy sound of flesh against rubber, and her opponent, a big strong man who outweighed her by 70 pounds, started dancing around, his muscles turned to jelly, his body shaking against the rope like it was electric. She went for his face, and it crumpled, a dumb look of surprise bleeding out of his features.

She put on a good show that night, rotating between the two guys so that they would have a chance to catch their breath. The impression she gave was one of sheer, unmitigated violence.

“Is that all?” Nisa asked, panting and elated, as a bell signaled the end of the last round. Another boxer snorted. “There are no more guys,” he yelled to her from across the room. “You’ve beat them all up.”