Less than half of all murders in New Jersey were cleared by arrest last year, according to an examination the most recent State Police data on crime in the state. Unlike television's CSI, not every case is always solved... Watch video
NEWARK--The killer or killers of Dawn Reddick--a 29-year-old third-grade teacher from Charlottesville, Va., who was fatally shot outside a Chinese restaurant in Newark four years ago--have never been arrested.
No one has ever been charged with the February 2013 shooting of 26-year-old Bruce Santos, gunned down at a bus stop on Broad Street in Newark on his way home from Newark Liberty International Airport where he held down two jobs. Authorities said the unidentified assailant, described as his early 20s with shoulder-length dreadlocks, tried to rob Santos at gunpoint before fatally shooting him. The gunman was last seen driving away in a silver or light-colored Thunderbird with a sunroof and a missing front left hubcap.
And the murder five years ago of Chafic "Steve" Ezzeddine, the 71-year-old owner of the Kenvil Diner in Roxbury found slain inside his restaurant on Memorial Day, still remains unsolved, said officials in the Morris County Prosecutor's Office. A $50,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of whoever was responsible.
Despite advances in forensic analysis and the growing use of video security cameras, more than four in 10 murders in New Jersey go unsolved, according to an examination of a decade's worth of statewide crime reports.
In 2015, slightly less than half of the 357 homicide cases were considered "cleared"--typically by arrest, according to the New Jersey State Police. The numbers were even lower in Newark, which reported the most murders statewide and cleared only about 30 percent of those cases, the numbers show.
"CSI make you think you can solve any murder in 52 minutes," said Essex County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly, referring to the popular CBS police procedural television drama. "But you still need witnesses. And you don't always get DNA."
Even when authorities think they know who did it, they may not charge someone unless they know they can convince a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the person they nabbed is the one who actually pulled the trigger.
The number of people murdered in New Jersey declined over the past decade, from 427 in 2006 to the 357 homicides reported in 2015. Indeed, for the first three months of 2016, the number of murders statewide dropped by nearly half, to 35 compared to 67 for the first three months of last year.
Part of that is due to improvements in emergency medicine. Shooting victims who make it alive to a hospital today are more likely to survive than they were 30 or 40 years ago, noted Wayne Fisher, a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers.
But law enforcement authorities are under no illusion that deadly violence is going away. In New Jersey, someone is murdered every 24 hours and 45 minutes. In more than 70 percent of all homicides, a gun was the weapon used.
In just this past week, Brent Dickson, 25, of Newark, was fatally shot near 11th Street and Avon Avenue. The owner of a Power Gas Station, Davinder Singh of Iselin, was killed at his business on West Market Street in Newark. In Trenton, police responded to an incident in the city's Chambersburg neighborhood, where they found a man with a gunshot wound, slumped in a car. Rushed to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, he later died.
"The bottom line is there's way too many guns. There's way too many guns in the city," said Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose. "We recovered 200 guns (so far) this year. That's more than a gun a day."
And far too many young men want to carry guns, he added, ticking off the big caliber weapons they favor. "They have no fear of dying," said Ambrose, a former Newark police officer who went on to become chief of police and police director, before later serving as the chief of detectives with the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.
In Newark, Ambrose said he has been focusing on the issue of guns by beefing up the number of detectives on the shootings squad.
Many motives
What sparks one to kill is most often a quarrel or a robbery, state statistics show. Drug or gang related incidents account just 7 percent of all murders.
"There's always a dispute that starts small and leads to a shooting," said Ambrose. "It's not so much about drugs and gangs. It's personal vendettas. A lot of it is someone saying 'he disrespected me.'"
But in more than three out of 10 cases, detectives are never able to determine a motive. Fisher, a former chairman of the New Jersey Police Training Commission, said the circumstances of the crime will largely determine how hard or difficult it is to ultimately solve it.
"Domestic violence or an argument in a bar is more likely to be solved," he said. "But think about the drug trade--unbridled capitalism where market share is protected by violence and there are no rules. The homicide in Short Hills is a far easier solvable crime than a gang- related shooting in the Fifth Precinct in Newark."
A domestic shooting will typically have a short list of suspects and no shortage of evidence. But he said detectives may have far more trouble finding witnesses willing to testify in a gang shooting or drug deal gone bad.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray said that can weigh heavily in whether a case is ever brought to a jury.
"It's frustrating for the people living there. It's frustrating to us as prosecutors. We try to encourage witnesses to come forward and tell them they are not the sole proof in the case," she said.
The CSI effect
At the same time, she said the impact of how television drama shapes public opinion plays out as well in the jury room, where many want to see the same kind of forensic wizardry that solves television crimes.
"The technology is often helpful. But it's overstated I the minds of the jury of how helpful it can be," she remarked. "In some cases, the expectations of the jurors have been artificially raised by CSI."
Even a murder caught on video does not always lead to an arrest. Prosecutors continue to look for the individual who shot James Wilson, 28, of Hillside, who was killed in an apparent robbery attempt on April 22, 2011, while working at Chestnut Wine and Liquors in West Orange. The shooting was captured on security cameras within the store and was posted on YouTube.
Video cameras also caught the September 2015 fatal beating by two unidentified men of Arthur DeMarsico, 68, of Newark after he left a dollar store. Detectives have the video, but have yet to arrest anyone.
Still, there is no statute of limitations for murder, and no unsolved case is ever closed, said Quovella M. Spruill, chief of detectives at the Essex County Prosecutor's Office. She said if a dead end is reached in an investigation, a new set of eyes will look at the case. There are tip lines, improvements in technology, and sometimes just new evidence. Back in the days of answering machines, someone listened to an old recorded message after their parents died--a voice from the past that revived an investigation into an old murder.
"Any time we get new information, we act on it," said Spruill.
Murray, though, acknowledged that some cases will never be solved.
"Every murder is investigated as if it were a family member. People might be surprised at the commitment detectives have even toward very unsympathetic victims--people who died with guns in their hands," she said. "But it's still someone's son or father and creates fear in the community. They want to close these cases."
She said her office continues to meet regularly with families of murder victims, even long after unresolved homicides become cold case files.
"It's a very difficult conversation. We've had mothers we contact twice a year for ten years. It's a very hard thing for family members to accept and we know that," she said.
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.