By: Richard L. Smith
A Trenton man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2021 murder of 53-year-old Pablo Herrera Chun, according to Mercer County Prosecutor Janetta D. Marbrey.
On July 28, 2025, Mercer County Superior Court Judge J. Adam Hughes handed down the sentence to 33-year-old Blake Pittman, who was convicted by a jury last November of murder and multiple weapons offenses.
Pittman also received a concurrent 10-year prison term for unlawful possession of a firearm and being a certain person not to possess a weapon.
The fatal shooting occurred on July 14, 2021, when Trenton police responded to a ShotSpotter alert in the area of 43 North Stockton Street.
Officers found Herrera Chun with a gunshot wound to the chest; he later died at the hospital. Investigators determined Pittman had intended to shoot someone driving on North Stockton Street but instead struck Herrera Chun, who was walking nearby.
Pittman was arrested two weeks later in a Bensalem, Pennsylvania hotel by members of the U.S. Marshals NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force.
At the time of the killing, Pittman had been out of prison for less than a year after serving time for aggravated manslaughter and robbery.
Following his conviction, Assistant Prosecutors William P. Fisher and Scott Gershman invoked New Jersey’s “Three Strikes Law” (N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.1), seeking a life term without parole.
While a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Erlinger v. United States required a separate jury determination for “Three Strikes” eligibility, the prosecution prevailed, making this the first jury trial of its kind in New Jersey.
“Assistant Prosecutors Fisher and Gershman could easily have accepted a standard 30-years-to-life sentence, but their drive for justice and commitment to public safety prompted them to push further,” Prosecutor Marbrey said. “As a result, they secured a historic jury decision that led to life without parole for Pittman.”