Bridgeton man gets 45 years for 2022 killing in Cumberland County

A Bridgeton man who fled Cumberland County after a deadly shooting at Maplewood Gardens will spend 45 years in prison, a sentence that locks in decades of punishment for a case that tore through one neighborhood and left six children without their father.

Superior Court Judge Joseph Chiarello sentenced Ryan A. Askins, 32, on June 5 after a March jury conviction for aggravated manslaughter in the killing of Herbert R. Lee Jr., 36, of Bridgeton. Chiarello also imposed a concurrent 10-year sentence on a charge of certain persons not to possess a handgun, meaning that term will run at the same time as the manslaughter sentence rather than adding another decade on top.

In practical terms, the sentence means Askins must serve 85 percent of the prison term before he can be considered for parole. That puts his earliest parole eligibility at about 38 years and 3 months, a punishment that reflects the court’s finding that he was a persistent offender and that the shooting carried serious aggravating factors.

The case began before dawn on July 30, 2022, when police were called around 3 a.m. to Maplewood Gardens apartments in Bridgeton for reports of fighting and gunfire. Officers found Lee wounded at the complex, and he died shortly afterward. Court documents and investigators’ reports showed a chaotic scene that was later reconstructed through surveillance cameras, social media video and cellphone footage.

According to those records, Askins tackled Lee and shot him in the chest during the melee. He then fled in a vehicle. Police later tried to stop him as he drove away from a Millville apartment complex, but he kept going, leading officers on a pursuit that reached about 80 mph before they ended the chase for safety reasons.

Askins remained on the run for nearly six months before authorities arrested him in Georgia in January 2023. That long gap helped stretch the case from the 2022 killing to the 2026 sentence, adding months of investigation, capture, jury trial and sentencing before the court finally reached a conclusion.

For Lee’s family and for residents who live around Maplewood Gardens, the sentence marks a major point of closure in a case that had lingered over Bridgeton for years. Lee left behind six children, a sister and a fiancée, and prosecutors have treated the sentence as part of a broader public-safety response in Cumberland County, where violent gun crimes continue to carry steep consequences.