Conviction in Jeffrey Locker murder

Kenneth Minor was convicted of one count of second-degree murder by a Manhattan jury on March 3 for the 2009 killing of North Woodmere motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker.

Locker, who helped bring wrestling to the Hewlett-Woodmere school district, was found dead in his car on July 16 in an East Harlem housing project. His hands were tied up and he had several stab wounds in his abdomen.

According to the prosecution and the defense, Locker had agreed to give Minor his ATM card to kill him. Arrested five days after the murder, Minor told police that Locker wanted to escape from his money troubles.

During the trial evidence was presented that showed Locker, 52, was in substantial debt and recently bought life insurance. Based on surveillance video presented at trial, Minor entered Locker’s car on July 16 and was also seen using Locker’s ATM card that night, and took and sold Locker’s cell phone. Minor is scheduled to be sentenced on April 5. He faces 25 years to life in prison.

Locker was one of five members of the Hewlett-Woodmere Wrestling Committee, a group of parents that raised funds to bring wrestling to the high school in 2006. As part of the group’s agreement with the school, the committee had to fund the sport for its first and second year. Locker and the other members of the committee raised more than $110,000 to do that.

The Committee established the Jeff Locker Memorial Scholarship in his memory. The $500 scholarship is awarded to a graduating Hewlett High School student “with a passion for business as demonstrated through school activities and extra-curricular community service projects,” as stated on the group’s website.

A tax deductible donation to the scholarship fund can be made payable to Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools and mailed to: Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools, Business Office, One Johnson Place, Woodmere, NY 11598, Attn: Jeff Locker Memorial Scholarship.

“The bottom line is a very nice person lost his life in a very ghastly way, and he was a very good, upbeat person,” Stephen Witt, a Hewlett-Woodmere school board trustee who knew Locker from the schools’ Athletics Facilities Committee, said previously. “The only thing I’ll remember is Jeff as a person. He was a very upbeat, positive person and a good father, parent and husband who was very supportive of his children and the Hewlett-Woodmere school district.