Friday, Nov. 15, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
The two were charged with murder and weapons offenses in connection with the slaying Sunday of Yafeu Fula, 19.
Authorities declined to release the suspects' names because they are juveniles. A 16-year-old boy was charged Thursday and a 17-year-old boy was charged Wednesday, authorities said.
Fula, 19, was shot once in the head and found slumped in a third-floor hallway of a housing project about 3:48 a.m. Sunday in Orange, authorities said. He was taken to University Hospital in Newark, where he died Sunday afternoon.
Authorities were still investigating the reason for the shooting Thursday.
"It doesn't appear at this time to be involved with the Tupac Shakur killing," Orange Capt. Richard Conte said.
Fula was a member of Shakur's backup group, the Outlaws Immortalz, who toured with the rapper. Fula was sitting with bodyguards in the car behind Shakur's when the rapper was shot Sept. 7 in Las Vegas.
Shakur, one of rap's most successful and notorious singers, was shot near the Las Vegas Strip following the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon boxing match.
The investigation into Shakur's death had been hindered by uncooperative witnesses, including Fula.
One of the boys charged in Fula's death had been under arrest at the Essex County Youth House in Newark on another charge when authorities charged him in the killing, Conte said. Conte did not know details of the boy's original arrest.
The other suspect turned himself in to the Essex County Prosecutor, Conte said.
Both boys were remanded to the Youth House on Thursday.
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