Joel Schectman

FALLEN FRIENDS: Students and staff at Validus Preparatory Academy are mourning Martin Jackson and Nadairee Walters. Guidance counselor Andrea Hines (pictured above with students) fondly recalled the slain teens, both of whom were members of the new school's pioneering first class.

New School Confronts Dual Tragedy

January 12, 2009
New York Daily News

Bronx —

The school stands out as a bright symbol of hope in a struggling Bronx neighborhood.

But that hope, as the brand-new Validus Preparatory Academy in Bathgate prepares for its first graduation, has been badly wounded by the murders of two of its students by stray gunfire in just half a year.

Martin Jackson, 18, was killed by stray gunfire in May in Crotona Park. Then on Nov. 15, Nadairee Walters, 17, of the same class, was shot outside a party after another teen opened fire.

Ironically, students and faculty said the two victims were very close friends.

“It goes beyond the loss of a student,” said Principal Brady Smith. “The two were members of the founding class and there was really a sense of family here. They were our pioneers.”