‘XBOX MURDERS’
May be motive clue in Troy nightmare
Were they all killed over an Xbox?
The two men charged in the grisly quadruple murder of a family in upstate Troy stole an Xbox video-game system and flatscreen TV from the victims’ home during their rampage, according to reports.
Police have not given a motive for the killings of Shanta Myers, 36, two of her three children — Jeremiah Myers, 11, and Shanise Myers, 5— and her girlfriend, Brandi Mells, 22.
But James White, 38, and Justin Mann, 24, were arraigned Friday on nine counts of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder, as well as charges of burglary, robbery and possession of stolen property.
A relative of Shanta Myers told The Daily Beast that Mann was friends with Mells, who had made no secret about shopping for games in the days leading up to the horror.
“I never seen [Mann] before a day in my life . . . but some of my family members recognize him as Brandi’s friend,” Myers’ nephew, Khalif Coleman, told the news site. “He supposedly always hung out with her.”
A review of Mells’ Facebook posts showed that she searched online for video games and toys for Myers’ children in the days before she was killed.
“Is anybody still adopting kids for xmas i have a 5, 11, an [sic] 15 year old,” she wrote on Dec. 19 in one Albany-area Facebook group. “Pockets are tight dont really have it anything helps. Games toys clothes shoes.”
Mells was specifically looking for Xbox and PlayStation games, The Daily Beast reported.
“If anyone have ps3 or xbox1 systems with games for my two boys they don’t have anything for Christmas anything help,” Mells wrote on Dec. 17.
The four victims were found bound with their throats slit Dec. 26 inside their basement apartment at 158 Second Ave., but authorities believe they were killed five days earlier.
Police found two knives near the bodies.
Myers’ oldest son and sole sur- vivor, 15-year-old Isaiah Smith, was away in Massachusetts during the bloodbath.
White and Mann pleaded not guilty to all the charges and were returned to the Rensselaer County jail, where they are being held without bail.
Mann previously pleaded guilty in March 2014 to an armed robbery in Queens, where he used to live.
He was sentenced to five years behind bars, and paroled on June 1, according to state records.
White pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2001 for his part in the stabbing death of a Bronx man and served nearly nine years in prison before being paroled.
“There’s nothing good about this case . . . This is just a tragic situation,’’ said Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove after the pair’s arraignments for the four murders, according to the Troy Record.