Former South Side High School football star charged with murder

Nearly a year after Melvin Wells, 40, was found mortally wounded in front of his Hempstead home, and 10 months after a Rockville Centre man and a Hempstead woman were arrested and charged with the murder, a third suspect — Bryant Daniels, 27, of 16C Meehan Lane — was arrested on Oct. 20 in connection with the incident.

James Rutledge, 20, of 21B Old Mill Court and Ramona Butler, 23, of 108 Grove Street, Apt. 2B, Hempstead — both former South Side High School students — were arrested on Dec. 7, 2010. At the time of their arrests, detectives said they believed that Wells had interceded to end a robbery on Nov. 4, 2010 at 8:35 p.m. that Rutledge, Butler and Daniels were conducting on his block. According to police, Wells shot at the fleeing suspects who returned fire, ending his life on the sidewalk in front of his 133 Linden Ave. home.

The arrests followed a joint investigation involving the Rockville Centre Police Department’s Anti-Crime Unit and detectives from the Nassau County Homicide Squad, the Bureau of Special Operations and the Third Squad.

Daniels, a former star running back for the Cyclones, who played from 1999-2001, was charged with second-degree murder and was arraigned on Oct. 21 in First District Court in Hempstead. He was remanded and appeared on Tuesday in Nassau County Court.