Thread: Two N.J. Children Found Beaten to Death

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 006S16.DTL

By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer

Friday, January 20, 2006

(01-20) 12:43 PST WALL TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) --

A woman abducted from a Jersey shore home where her two sons were found bludgeoned to death managed to escape from her captor and run to a gas station for help, authorities said Friday.

The woman's ex-husband had called police Thursday night after she called him by cell phone, saying she had been kidnapped and forced to withdraw money from an ATM. He went to the home and found the bodies of his slain sons in the basement.

Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas Kelaher said Friday that the boys, ages 7 and 14, had been beaten to death with a hammer.

The boys' mother, Wanda Gonzalez, had been bound with neckties and wires and taken away in her own minivan, but she managed to struggle free as her abductor drove down the Garden State Parkway, authorities said. When he stopped at a gas station, she began screaming and ran to the station.

The suspect ran into a wooded area but was captured early Friday.

Richard Toledo Gonzalez, 24, described as an illegal immigrant unrelated to the family, was charged with two counts of murder, kidnapping and robbery and ordered held on $2 million bail.

During a brief court appearance, he stared straight down and answered in Spanish.

At one point, a man identified by court personnel as a relative of the slain children pointed to his own eyes, pointed to Gonzalez and yelled in Spanish: "Why can't you look into my eyes?"

His public defender, Eugenia Lynch, said outside court that her client was overwhelmed by the proceedings.

Richard Gonzalez had been living with the family since October, Kelaher said.

He knew the woman through a prior job, and the two were not romantically involved, the prosecutor said. Authorities said a motive for the killings was not immediately clear.

Wanda Gonzalez did not learn of her sons' deaths until she was taken to a hospital to be treated for bruises, authorities said.

During the search for her abductor, authorities said Richard Gonzalez at one point hid in a drainage pipe under the parkway and, soaking wet, called police using a cell phone to report he was freezing cold and needed help.

Police using loudspeakers tried to coax him from hiding. A television reporter later spotted him and alerted police.

"He was shivering, bent over. It looked like he was freezing. He walked over and sat down on a guardrail right in front of me," said News 12 New Jersey reporter Tony Caputo. Caputo said he slowly backed his car out and drove to the other side of the parking area and alerted a police officer.

The suspect got up off the guardrail and shuffled to the entrance of the rest area building, where an officer took him into custody.

this last week in oregon a male - described as "hispanic " attacked and I think raped a woman in hood river- then another man - with a latin name raped a boy- its all overthe place- yet since immigration status is not mentioned it isnt connected in the public's mind.

This seems to be a very high profile crime that is getting lots of media attention. Here are several articles with varying details of what happened.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl ... S/60120007

BREAKING NEWS: Suspect in double murder remains in custody
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/20/06
BY RICHARD QUINN, JOE ZEDALIS AND MARGARET F. BONAFIDE
STAFF WRITERS
TOMS RIVER â€â€

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/13671670.htm

Posted on Fri, Jan. 20, 2006

Man held in killings of two boys, kidnapped mom

By Sam Wood
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

An illegal Mexican immigrant who had been taken in by a former coworker when he lost his job bashed the woman's two sons to death with a hammer, then kidnapped her and forced her to withdraw $500 from an automated teller, Ocean County authorities said today.

The mother, Wanda Gonzalez, broke free from antenna wire restraints this morning when the kidnapper stopped for gas on the Garden State Parkway, said Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher. She begged a garage mechanic for help in broken English and Spanish and the mechanic called the police, Kelaher said.

More than 100 troopers with dogs and a helicopter swarmed the area. They nabbed a soaking wet Richard Toledo, whose age wasn't immediately available, after he phoned police and said he was wet and cold from hiding in a drainage culvert.

He was jailed under $2 million bail, accused of two counts of murder, robbery, kidnapping and other crimes.

During most of a brief, afternoon court appearance in Toms River, Gonzalez stared straight down, answering in Spanish to most of the questions he was asked. At one point, a man identified by court personnel as a relative of the slain childen pointed to his own eyes, pointed to Gonzalez and yelled in Spanish, "Why can't you look into my eyes?"

Outside court, Gonzalez's public defender, Eugenia Lynch, said she could not yet predict what sort of defense her client would use and said he appeared overwhelmed by the proceedings.

The boys' father found the ghastly crime scene Thursday night after his estranged wife phoned him from a bank. She said she had been kidnapped and forced to withdraw money, Kelaher said, but didn't know what had happened to their sons, aged 7 and 14.

The father phoned police and raced to the split-level home in Manahawkin.

The boys' bodies were in a downstairs bedroom. One child's head was covered with a bag and the other with a shirt. Both were beaten repeatedly with a hammer, said the prosecutor.

He said the scene was a bloodbath. The father "went crazy," Kelaher said.

It's unclear why Toledo killed the children, Kelaher said.

The prosecutor said Toledo and Gonzalez worked together at an Egg Harbor country club until October, when Toledo lost his job. Gonzalez felt sorry for him and allowed him to stay at her split-level home, said Kelaher.

Gonzalez is separated from her husband. The prosecutor said there was no indication that she had any romantic relationship with the accused killer.

The prosecutor said Gonzalez was "smacked around" during her captivity. She was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, where authorities told her that her sons had been killed, Kelaher said.

Her husband also was treated at the hospital.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/nyreg ... idnap.html



January 21, 2006
Man Kills 2 Boys, Kidnaps Mother and Flees, Officials Say
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
TOMS RIVER, N.J., Jan. 20 - A transient worker who was staying with a New Jersey family bludgeoned their two sons to death with a hammer, kidnapped the mother at knifepoint, and was apprehended hours later, cold, wet and confused after hiding in a drainpipe, the authorities said on Friday.

The police said the murder suspect, Richard Toledo, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, turned himself in early Friday after the woman had managed to escape and he had been cornered in marshy woods by scores of officers, barking bloodhounds and a police helicopter.

Prosecutors were at a loss for a motive, saying they had no idea why Mr. Toledo, 24, killed the boys, Karlo Gonzalez, 14, and his little brother Zabdiel Gonzalez, 7.

"All we know is that he brutally beat to death two young boys," said Thomas F. Kelaher, the prosecutor for Ocean County.

The police said that Mr. Toledo had been living with the Gonzalez family for about a year in their split-level home in the Ocean Acres subdivision of Stafford Township. He was a busboy at a country club, clearing dishes, pouring glasses of water and setting out plates of warm bread.

The Gonzalezes were trying to help get him on his feet. The police said that Mr. Toledo considered himself part of the family and even occasionally used Gonzalez as his last name.

"Out of the kindness of their heart, they took him in," Mr. Kelaher said.

Mr. Toledo apparently once worked with Wanda Gonzalez, the mother of the two boys, cleaning offices. The police described him as a worker who drifted from menial job to menial job.

Few of the Gonzalez family's neighbors had ever heard of him, and on Friday people stood blank-faced in their doorways, staring at the yellow tape stretched across the same driveway where the two boys used to shoot hoops.

"This is a nightmare," said Dee Nielson, a neighbor.

About 7 p.m. Thursday, some time after the boys were killed, Mr. Toledo pulled a butcher knife on Ms. Gonzalez, 38, wrapped her hands with wire and forced her out of her house and into her minivan, the police said. He drove her to an A.T.M. a few miles away and made her withdraw $500.

Then he sped up the Garden State Parkway, heading to New York City, the police said. But he was running out of gas and pulled into a Mobil station in Monmouth County.

Josh Hall was pumping gas when Ms. Gonzalez burst out of the minivan, screaming: "He's got a knife! He's got my kids!"

Ms. Gonzalez ran toward the garage. Mr. Toledo chased her for a few steps before bolting into the woods.

Ms. Gonzalez collapsed inside the garage, hysterical and sobbing, telling Mr. Hall and the other attendants that her sons were missing. At this point, she did not know they had been killed, the police said.

The attendants called 911, and Ms. Gonzalez called her husband, Carlos.

Neighbors described Mr. Gonzalez as a hard worker and an eager landscaper who was often seen working on his lawn. The police said that the couple had a history of domestic violence, had separated but were trying to get back together.

The police also said Mr. Toledo may have been baby-sitting the two boys when they were killed.

Mr. Gonzalez rushed home. As soon as he stepped into a bedroom on the first floor, he discovered the bodies of his sons, which were so bloody the police initially thought the boys had been stabbed to death.

Mr. Gonzalez had a panic attack and was taken to a nearby hospital. The police said the boys were the couple's only children.

At the same time, a manhunt was unfolding, with dozens of officers racing to the Mobil station and the thick woods around it, searching for Mr. Toledo.

At 3:30 a.m., the break came. Mr. Toledo called 911 on a cellphone and told the operator that he was the man the police were looking for. "He was wet, he was cold, and he just wanted someone to tell him what to do," said Capt. Al Della Fave of the New Jersey State Police.

At 4:30 a.m., after lengthy conversations with a Spanish-speaking state trooper, Mr. Toledo emerged from the woods, shivering from his hours in the drainpipe.

Ocean County authorities charged Mr. Toledo with two counts of murder as well as kidnapping and robbery. Bail was set at $2 million.

On Friday afternoon, Mr. Toledo appeared in State Superior Court in Toms River.

He is about 5-foot-5 and weighs 110 pounds, and the police said that he was smaller than the older son.

A relative of the boys shouted at Mr. Toledo to look him in the eyes. Mr. Toledo only looked down, at his feet.

John Holl contributed reporting for this article from Ocean County, N.J.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf ... thispage=1

2 DEATHS, NO ANSWERS
Saturday, January 21, 2006
BY MARYANN SPOTO, BRIAN DONOHUE AND TOM FEENEY
Star-Ledger Staff
Karlo Gonzalez always looked out for his younger brother, Zabdiel. He went to the bus stop every afternoon to make sure he made it home safely. Whenever they played together outside, he made sure Zabdiel stayed out of harm's way.

In Richard Toledo, authorities say, the 14-year-old Karlo encountered a menace from which he couldn't keep 7-year-old Zabdiel safe.

Ocean County authorities have charged Toledo, a 24-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who was renting a room in the Gonzalezes' Manahawkin home, with bludgeoning the boys to death with a hammer, then kidnapping their mother Thursday evening.

The spree led to a dramatic, overnight manhunt along the Garden State Parkway in Wall Township. Even after Toledo was in custody, prosecutors were at a loss yesterday to explain his actions.

"All we know is the body of these two young boys, two brothers, were obviously brutally beaten and saturated in blood," Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas Kellaher said during a late morning news conference in Toms River.

Karlo and Zabdiel were beaten so badly that the first investigators at the scene thought they'd been stabbed, Kellaher said.

The boys arrived home from school Thursday afternoon -- Karlo, an eighth-grader, from Southern Regional Middle School and Zabdiel, a second-grader, from Ocean Acres School.

"The older boy was so polite and so loving," said Dee Neilson, a neighbor. "I used to see him waiting on the corner for the younger boy's bus. You could tell he looked out for him. You could tell they were brought up the right way."

The boys were home alone with Toledo, a slight man with a sparse beard who has lived with the Gonzalezes in their Middie Lane home since October. Prosecutors did not have the autopsy results yesterday evening, so they don't know how many times Toledo struck the boys, nor did they know what time he killed them, Kellaher said.

Sometime early Thursday evening, the boys' mother, 36-year-old Wanda Gonzalez, returned home from her job with a cleaning service. She walked in on the upper level of the split-level home, and before she could go downstairs to check on her sons, Toledo took her captive, Kellaher said.

He bound her wrists with wire and forced her into a white minivan. He drove her to a Commerce Bank on Route 72 in Manahawkin and, at knifepoint, forced her to give him her ATM card, authorities said. He used it to withdraw $500, the maximum amount the machine would allow, authorities said.

Sometime after the ATM withdrawal -- possibly when Toledo was still outside the van at the machine -- Gonzalez was able to call her estranged husband on her cell phone, authorities said. She told him she had been kidnapped. She also told him her sons had been kidnapped and left in Lacey Township, repeating a lie Toledo had told her, Kellaher said.

The boys' father, Carlos Gonzalez, 38, who has been living at his mother's house in Barnegat since he and Wanda separated, called 911 and drove to the house in the Manahawkin section of Stafford Township, authorities said. He was met there by police officers.

"They initially looked in the house. She wasn't there. They didn't see the kids," Kellaher said. "The officers started to take a report as to the circumstances when the father of the boys went downstairs and saw the bodies."

Gonzalez shrieked in anguish. His sobs could be heard through the neighborhood.

"I was at my computer and I heard yelling. It was him," said Tracey Daleo, a neighbor.

After leaving the bank, Toledo drove the white minivan along Route 72 and onto the northbound Garden State Parkway, authorities said. Sometime around 8:30 p.m., after driving for about 40 miles, he stopped for gas at the Monmouth Service Area, which sits between the northbound and southbound lanes around mile marker 100, authorities said. Gonzalez, who had worked her hands free from the wire binding, leaped from the van as Toledo pulled up to the pump.

"I seen the dude. I seen him run. I heard the lady scream. And that's it," an attendant at the gas station said.

Authorities said Gonzalez ran toward a service bay. Toledo fled, on foot, into woods on the other side of the southbound lanes.

He spent most of the next seven hours hiding in a drainage pipe as more than 100 police officers searched the area, authorities said. The woods were lit up with spotlights from a helicopter and a fire truck. Police dogs combed the area.

"They effectively boxed the suspect in," said Capt. Al Della Fave, a State Police spokesman. "It was a cat and mouse game that went on through the course of the night."

The game broke in favor of the police at about 3 a.m., when Toledo called 911 to report, in broken English, that he was wet and cold. Toledo was eventually patched through to a Spanish-speaking trooper, Eliecer Ayala, authorities said.

"He was confused and cold and was just looking for someone to tell him what to do," Della Fave said.

Ayala had nearly convinced Toledo he could turn himself in safely when the battery on Toledo's cell phone died and they lost contact. Ayala then drove a police cruiser around the perimeter of the rest stop parking lot and broadcast his plea, in Spanish, to Toledo over the loudspeaker.

Toledo finally surrendered around 4 a.m., State Police said.

Ocean County authorities charged him with two counts of murder and one count each of kidnapping and robbery.

He was being held on $2 million cash bail.

Toledo told immigration authorities he crossed into the U.S. illegally from his native Mexico at the southwestern border, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Michael Gilhooly. ICE had no contact with him before his arrest yesterday morning, Gilhooly said.

Toledo worked most recently as a busboy in a restaurant at the Sea Oaks Golf Club in Little Egg Harbor. Other employees there remembered him as quiet and conscientious. One employee said he had seen him recently at a church in Manahawkin.

Toledo worked at the restaurant for about a month. A few weeks ago, he quit without notice.

"He just disappeared" said Christopher Herrmann, the food and beverage manager.

Toledo's first appearance in an Ocean County courtroom yesterday afternoon was emotional. Four members of the Gonzalez family -- three men and a woman -- sat among members of the media in the spectator gallery. When a shackled Toledo was led into the room, two of the men began to sob.

The proceeding was brief. Superior Court Judge Vincent Grasso asked Toledo, through an interpreter, whether he understood the charges against him and his rights to legal representation and a jury trial. He answered each question with a "yes" or a "si."

When he was being led away, Luis Burgos, an uncle of the dead children, yelled tearfully in Spanish, "Look at me! Why don't you look me in the eyes?" The family members left the courtroom without speaking to the media.

Many of them were gathered later in the day at a small Barnegat home where Carlos Gonzalez has lived since he and his wife separated. There, too, they declined to speak about their loss.

The Gonzalezes' marital troubles were known to Stafford Township police. They had been called to the Middie Lane home more than once for a domestic disturbance, police Capt. Charles Schweigart said at the news conference. Carlos has been spending more time at the house of late as the couple has tried to reconcile, Kellaher said.

While they were apart, Carlos had custody of the boys on the weekends. Neighbors on the dead-end street in Barnegat where he's been living said the boys have been a fixture there.

"When he and his wife split up, he said his kids were the only thing that kept him going," said Donna James, whose mother lives on the block. "His kids were his pride and joy."

The boys would play basketball with other kids on the street. Zabdiel was tiny, even for a 7-year-old, but he always had his big brother to look out for him, James said.

Contributions to help the family cover the cost of burial and other expenses can be sent to the Gonzalez Family Trust Fund, care of Commerce Bank, Route 72, Manahawkin, N.J., 08050.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl ... S/60121010

Investigation continues at Stafford crime scene
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/21/06
BY JOE ZEDALIS
MANAHAWKIN BUREAU
STAFFORD -- Members of the Criminalistics Investigation Unit of the Ocean County Sheriff's Department were back at 208 Middie Lane this morning, re-examining the home where two boys were found dead Thursday night.

The bodies of 14-year-old Karlo Gonzalez and his 7-year-old brother Zabdiel were found by their father shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday. Richard Toledo, 24, who was living in the home as a boarder, has been charged in the deaths.

The deaths of both boys have been ruled homicides, executive assistant Ocean County prosecutor Robert A. Gasser said Saturday afternoon.

Their autopsies were performed Friday night at Community Medical Center in Toms River by the Ocean County Medical Examiner. Gasser said Saturday they showed Zabdiel died of blunt forced trauma to the head and neck compression.

"The neck compression indicates strangulation,'' he said.

The results also show Karlo died of multiple blunt force injuries to the head, neck and chest, Gasser said.

"Both boys were struck multiple times with a hammer,'' said Gasser, who believes authorities have recovered the hammer.

Outside of the house on Saturday, a small makeshift memorial had been started in front of the mailbox. This morning, there was a teddy bear dressed in New York Yankees garb, a Rawlings baseball glove, two bears representing the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions, a pink pig, and a candle.

The house is still surrounded by yellow crime scene tape. The house has been and will remain under 24-hour guard.

A few blocks away, parents enjoyed the unseasonably warm day at Lighthouse Park, as they pushed their children on swings and watched as they climbed on the jungle gym.

Many accepted the reality that no area, no matter how safe, is immune to a violent crime.

"It was a random guy involved in something that could have happened anyplace,'' said Keith Ruff of Yeoman Road.

"There are crazy people out there,'' added Kimberley Lawlor of Mizzen Avenue.

The brutality of the murder, however, also made many parents want to run home and hug their children.

"My wife is a teacher and she called me and asked me to come to her school so she could go give our daughter Karli a hug and a kiss at preschool yesterday (Friday),'' Ruff said.

Lawlor said her family made ice cream and waffles Friday night.

"Just because,'' she said. ""We made a mess and I wanted them to have some fun.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/nyregion/22slay.html

January 22, 2006
Boys' Killing Motivated by Robbery, Police Think
By MANNY FERNANDEZ and NATE SCHWEBER
Police in Stafford Township, N.J., said yesterday that robbery was one of the main motives behind the beating deaths of two boys by a man who lived in their home.

The man, Richard Toledo, 24, had been living with Wanda Gonzalez and her two sons since October in the Ocean Acres neighborhood of Stafford Township, a small Jersey Shore community.

On Thursday, the authorities said, Mr. Toledo beat the boys - Karlo Gonzalez, 14, and Zabdiel Gonzalez, 7 - with a hammer, killing them. The police said he then kidnapped Ms. Gonzalez at knifepoint, driving her in her minivan to an A.T.M. on Route 72, where he forced her to withdraw $500, the maximum amount the machine allowed.

Mr. Toledo was taken into custody early on Friday at a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway.

"Robbery is pretty much what we're looking at right now," said Capt. Charles Schweigart of the Stafford Township police.

Mr. Toledo was charged with two counts of murder as well as kidnapping and robbery. He remained at the Ocean County jail with bail set at $2 million. The authorities said that Mr. Toledo was an illegal immigrant from Mexico who had drifted from job to job, recently working for a few weeks as a busboy at the Sea Oaks Golf Club in Little Egg Harbor Township.

Ms. Gonzalez took him in as a boarder after meeting him at a cleaning service where they had both worked, the police said.

It did not appear that there had been a romantic relationship between Ms. Gonzalez and Mr. Toledo, who has no criminal record or history of mental illness of which the police were aware, Captain Schweigart said.

Captain Schweigart said the boys liked their guest. "They would play electronic games together," he said. After his arrest, Mr. Toledo admitted to the police in Spanish that he had killed the boys, the captain said.

The authorities said the autopsy showed that the 7-year-old died of injuries to the head, and the 14-year-old died of injuries to the head, neck and chest.

The Gonzalezes lived in a split-level house on Middie Lane, a normally quiet street. Yesterday, Ocean County Sheriff's Department investigators came in and out of the house, where the base of the mailbox at the edge of the front lawn had been turned into a makeshift memorial. Among the items placed there were a blue Detroit Lions teddy bear, a white votive candle and a baseball mitt with a white plastic ball inside.

Another example of hard working good folks trying to provide for their families.

yep - And let me add my " Ditto" to yours - Had enuf