Teen Honors Student Murdered After Being Lured By Bogus Facebook Marketplace Seller

A man who reportedly shot and killed a fifteen-year-old student in Albany, New York has been arrested on Monday, Jan. 17, after he and a group of other men opened fire on the student and her friends more than half a year ago.

Destiny Greene, the 15-year-old honors student from Latham, New York, was killed on May 24, 2021 when she and three other friends of hers met up with a group of men to finalize a sale that started on Facebook Marketplace, CBS affiliate WRGB reported.

The men who met with her were planning to rob her and her friends, so they started shooting indiscriminately at the car they were driving, which ended up hitting Greene in the torso and causing her to die in the hospital, according to Law&Crime.

Greene died weeks before her 16th birthday, and Tareen Lynch-Greene, Destiny’s mother, had started both a scholarship and a free community clothing store in honor of Destiny, who had wanted to be a nurse aesthetician when she grew up.

Nineteen-year-old Branden Rivera was a suspect in the case before a warrant for his arrest was released on August 2021, with the charges of criminal possession of stolen property and first-degree murder among the many in his docket.

“Through our preliminary investigation, we found that back in May there was some sort of social media transaction that was taking place and that there was an attempted robbery and shots were fired. Rivera [has] since been arrested for that incident,” Steve Smith, Albany’s Public Information Officer, said.

Smith has also revealed that the police have no other suspects that they are investigating for Greene’s death.

“I thought about this day for 241 days and today didn’t play out the way I envisioned it. It is bittersweet. On one hand, I want Branden to suffer the way my family and friends are suffering now,” Lynch-Green said in a statement to the press when asked about Rivera’s arrest.

“On the other hand, I feel sorry for his family. Now they are losing their son. I wanted to blame the family for what he did but I can’t right now,” she continued.

If convicted for the murder, Rivera could get life in prison.