Asbury Park man pleads guilty to football star’s murder

An Asbury Park man has plead guilty to fatally shooting a former star athlete and wounding another man five days before Christmas in 2015, the Monmouth County prosecutor said.

Diquan Speights, 23, entered a negotiated plea deal and admitted to killing 24-year-old Jamar Small, shooting and injuring 25-year-old Tyreek Small and brandishing a gun at 29-year-old Tieshe Small on Dec. 20, said Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni in a statement released Thursday.

All three were related, however Jamar and Tyreek were brothers.

Speights pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter, second-degree aggravated assault and fourth-degree aggravated assault by pointing a firearm.

In pursuant to the plea deal, authorities say the prosecution will recommend 16 years in state prison, followed by five years of parole supervision.

Shortly before noon on Dec. 20, Asbury Park police officers responded to a shooting on the 1000 block of Summerfield Avenue.

At the scene, officers found Jamal and Tyreek Small suffering from gunshot wounds — the elder brother was shot in the back; the younger brother in the abdomen. Medical personnel transported Jamal Small to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where he died about three hours later from the gunshot wound.

Police determined that Speights fired five shots at the Small brothers while they were inside of a car, backing out of a driveway.

Minutes before Speights shot at the Small brothers, Speights threatened Tieshe Small with a gun — the same gun that would kill Jamal Small — on the 1000 block of nearby Bangs Avenue.

Jamar Small was a 2010 graduate of Asbury Park High School and one of the best football players in the state during that time, who went on to by football at Texas Southern University. He would graduate from TSU with a degree in Business Administration.

Upon graduating college, Small returned to Monmouth County, where he worked as a drug counselor in Marlboro and acted as a mentor to boys in Asbury Park.