Jun. 19, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Participant in club melee found dead in Bronx
By DAVID KIHARA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Sadia Morrison, the woman who was with Adam "Pacman" Jones during a 2007 melee at the Minxx strip club, has turned up dead in the Bronx.
Her friends and family think she was thrown off an apartment building.
New York City police are investigating Morrison's death but are not providing many details.
"We're looking at any and all possibilities," New York City Police Department spokesman Martin Brown said Wednesday.
Police from the 44th Precinct went to 1065 University Ave. in the Bronx on Friday after receiving a call that a woman needed help. When police arrived, they found Morrison unresponsive. She was declared dead at the scene.
The New York City medical examiner's office has not released a cause or manner of death.
"I have no idea who could do something so cruel and disgusting," said John Moore, a friend who knew Morrison for at least seven years.
Morrison was arrested in connection with the fight that broke out in the Minxx in February 2007, ensnaring Jones. A shooting outside the club moments after the fight left a bouncer, Tommy Urbanski, paralyzed from the waist down.
Authorities accused Morrison of fighting with strippers inside the club and of striking a security guard, Aaron Cudworth, with a champagne bottle.
She later pleaded no contest to a felony battery charge for her role in the fight. For her plea, Clark County prosecutors dropped charges of assault with a deadly weapon, coercion and battery. She was sentenced to three years of probation.
Jones and another man, Robert "Big Rob" Reid, both pleaded no contest to a charge of conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct in connection with the Minxx brawl. They each were given one year of probation and did not serve jail time.
According to their plea agreements, Jones and Reid consented to testify against shooting suspect Arvin Kenti Edwards of Renton, Wash. Morrison was not required to testify.
Edwards, who was 29 years old when he was arrested in April, is being held in Washington state on $1 million bail pending extradition to Nevada. In a phone interview with WTVF-TV in Nashville, Tenn., Edwards denied he was the shooter. According to a Las Vegas police report, Jones identified Edwards in a photo lineup as the man responsible for the shooting.
District Attorney David Roger said Wednesday that Morrison's death is not going to affect Edwards' case. He said Morrison was inside the club at the time of the shooting and was not a witness to it.
Morrison's 25-year-old brother, Paul Morrison, said he did not think her death is connected with the Minxx shooting.
He spoke with the New York medical examiners when he had to identify his sister's remains. Morrison said his sister had two head injuries: one from hitting a satellite dish while falling and another that he thinks was caused by an assailant.
Sadia Morrison was raised in the Bronx but lived in Harlem. She worked as a stylist, publicist and promoter in New York, and her career was just taking off, Paul Morrison said. He said she styled several A-list celebrities, including 50 Cent and Kanye West.
"She just got her chance and was starting to move out of the projects," Morrison said. "The checks were starting to roll in."
He said his sister was blunt, fiercely loyal and would never take "no" for an answer, qualities that helped her in her professional life but which might have contributed to the fight inside the strip club.
"If Sadia's with you, she's with you," Morrison said. "If something happens, she's with you. Sometimes it leads to her downfall, but that's the way it is."
Moore said he met Morrison when she interned for Vibe magazine in 2002. He was on the magazine staff at the time. Morrison was known for her outgoing personality and for wearing bright colors like neon pinks, greens and yellows, he said.
"She always had the personality of a star," Moore said. "She always came off like she wanted to conquer the world."
Contact reporter David Kihara at
dkihara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039.
