Zach Sanders murder: Natasha White murderer – Zach Sanders death
Zach Sanders murder: Natasha White murderer – Zach Sanders death. What happened?
Natasha White killed Zach Sanders, her ex-boyfriend by running him over with her Lexus in the parking lot of the Rubicon Pub in Orange after a dispute in 2007.
In 2009, 32 year old Natasha White was found guilty of using her vehicle as a weapon to kill Zachary Sanders, a 33-year-old Orange resident and father.
After a three-week trial and eight hours of deliberations, a tearful jury convicted White on 10 counts, including murder, vehicular homicide, aggravated assault, criminal mischief, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, operating a vehicle while her driver’s license was revoked, simple assault and other charges.
During the verdict, several jurors fought back tears.
Zach Sanders fiancee and mother of his two children, Latoshia Renee Richardson, sobbed in the courtroom after the verdict. Sanders’ mother, Betty Sanders, said the burden of her son’s death is something she will have to carry the rest of her life.
“I know this won’t bring my son back, but let her pay for what she did,” Betty Sanders said of White.
How Zach Sanders murder happened: Natasha White murderer – Zach Sanders death
According to Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow:
“This was a case of a jealous ex-girlfriend who became violent and used her vehicle as a lethal weapon after her relationship with her boyfriend had ended.
Natasha White will now face decades behind bars for such a senseless killing.”
Prosecutors said that on April 9, 2007 at about 11 p.m., Natasha White confronted her ex-boyfriend Zach Sanders as he stood outside the bar with his friend Bernard Kelly.
Judy Gagliano, chief assistant prosecutor said White first used her silver Lexus GS 300 to ram the back of Sanders’ unoccupied pickup truck, which was parked in a driveway next to the bar.
Judy said White apparently believed Sanders was inside the vehicle. But when White then saw Sanders next to the vehicle, she put her Lexus into drive and ran him over, almost striking another man in the process.
White aimed her car directly at Sanders and hit the accelerator, striking him and dragging his body several feet down the street from the lot.
Gagliano said White made no attempt to flee the scene.
“The police were there almost immediately,” she said.
Sanders was taken to University Hospital in Newark, where he was pronounced dead at 11:52 p.m. He had suffered a crushed chest.
Just 9 days earlier, White had used her vehicle to ram into Sanders’ parked Infiniti at the same location.
Late on March 31, 2007, Sanders’ fiancee Latoshia Renee Richardson drove by a pub in Orange and spotted him arguing with Natasha White.
Richardson parked her Durango outside the Rubicon Pub and got out. As Sanders approached her, Natasha White shouted she had been having sex with Sanders for two years.
White was said to have gotten into her Lexus and rammed it into Sanders’ parked Infiniti outside the bar. Richardson said:
“She first ran into it, then put it in reverse and ran into it again, then put it in reverse and ran into it again.”
White’s defense attorney Champ Goldman, had argued Sanders jumped on the hood of the car and was not run over, making his death an accident instead of a murder.
Goldman said:
“She had to explain why she didn’t stop the car. She was scared to stop it. He would beat the (expletive) out of her.”
Sanders’ best friend, Kelly, had testified he was standing next to Sanders in the bar parking lot when the Lexus hit the two men and killed Sanders. The car White was driving hit Kelly’s right leg, propelling him over the car’s hood and landing him on the other side of it, he said.
Kelly testified Sanders ended up on the hood and White kept driving, even as Sanders banged on her windshield repeatedly and shouted for her to stop.