COPS READY TO BUCKLE DOWN ON ANYONE NOT BUCKLING UP

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 24, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star Four Star B Two Star | NEWS | Page B04

Operation Domino, the six-month driver-education program that sponsors said helped reduce automobile accidents in Bergen County by about 1,300 last year, worked so well it is getting a second chance this year beginning today.
“Buckle Up and Drive Defensively” will be the theme of Operation Domino Revisited, said John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Office of Highway Safety.
Bergen County’s 70 police departments will concentrate on enforcing the state seat-belt law, he said. “Every death [on the county’s roadways] is a defeat,” Pescatore said. “When you go to an accident and you see that 17-year-old thrown from the car because he was not wearing a seat belt, when you go to an accident and you see a child thrown through with windshield because she was not in a child-restraint seat, they bring your defeats right before you.”
Last year’s effort a pilot program to see if enforcement, coupled with community awareness and cooperation, would effectively reduce the number of accidents in the county focused on a specific violation each month.
Some of the violations focused on were speeding, tailgating, not coming to a full stop at a stop sign, and failure to signal when changing lanes.
The program was so successful that the county was able to see a 10 percent compliance jump from 45 percent to 55 percent, 5 percent above the state average with the seat belt law, Pescatore said.
Motorists should be more careful this year, Pescatore said, because the slow economy has added more cars to state highways during a season of already high travel. More families than in years past will be planning shorter but more frequent trips to state’s shores and resort areas, he said.
As a result, Bergen County will work with Atlantic County on another pilot program Operation Leapfrog, a series of public service announcements asking residents of the two counties to buckle up, watch their speed, obey the rules of the road, and not drink and drive.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; POLICE; MOTOR VEHICLE; SAFETY; EQUIPMENT; VIOLATION

FT. LEE MAN INJURED BY CAR HIT AT ROADSIDE PHONE BOOTH

By Michael O. Allen and Caroline Hendrie, Record Staff Writers | Sunday, May 19, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A04

An out-of-control car careered off Sylvan Avenue in Englewood Cliffs on Saturday and smashed into a telephone booth, severely injuring a 49-year-old Fort Lee man.
Kazuo Matsumoto of 8 Buckingham Road was listed in critical condition at University Hospital in Newark, where he was rushed by helicopter after the 12:10 p.m. accident.
The driver, Nathan Andors, 73, of 2200 N. Central Road, Fort Lee, suffered a minor cut to the forehead and was treated at Englewood Hospital and released, police said.
No charges had been filed in connection with the accident as of Saturday evening, said Lt. William Gallagher of the Englewood Cliffs police.
One bystander, who declined to be identified, said that Matsumoto was knocked about 25 feet in the air when the car struck him and that his glasses and shoes flew in different directions.
Andors car, southbound on Sylvan Avenue, uprooted the telephone booth, which was in front of a bus stop about 20 feet from the corner of Bayview Avenue. The car also knocked down a traffic control box, exposing electrical wires, and came to rest with its front end buried in a Public Service Electric and Gas Co. utility pole.
Gallagher said Matsumoto was talking on the phone with a member of his family when the accident occurred.
A University Hospital spokeswoman said that Matsumoto underwent surgery Saturday afternoon and that he was in critical condition when he left the operating room at about 6:30 p.m. Family members visited Saturday evening, said Dorothy Crews, assistant director of nursing.
In a ride that took less than five minutes, Matsumoto was taken to the hospital in the state-owned Northstar emergency medical evacuation helicopter. University Hospital is the only North Jersey medical facility classified as a Level I trauma center, equipped to handle the most serious cases, said John Nichols, a hospital flight medic who treated Matsumoto.
Nichols said the helicopter and its crew were in Somerset for a training seminar when they were summoned at 12:26 p.m. to the accident scene. The helicopter landed on the hospital’s roof at 12:56 p.m.
The Northstar helicopter has been used with increasing frequency in Bergen County recently, but it is still not common for the helicopter to be summoned to the area, Nichols said.
The accident disrupted traffic in both directions on Sylvan Avenue, which is Route 9W.
For about four hours, southbound traffic was diverted onto Route 9W north through the parking lot of the executive offices of the Prentice-Hall publishing company. Northbound traffic was also diverted.
Both northbound lanes were reopened about 3:40 p.m., and one southbound lane was reopened at 4 p.m. The remaining southbound lane was barricaded until about 4:45 p.m. to allow workers to repair electrical wires.

Keywords: FORT LEE; MOTOR VEHICLE; TELEPHONE; ACCIDENT; ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS; VICTIM; KAZUO MATSUMOTO, NATHAN ANDORS

OFFICER COMMITS SUICIDE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 17, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star Two Star | NEWS | Page B03

The body of a 25-year-old township police officer who was distraught over the dissolution of his marriage was discovered at his Grand Avenue apartment on Wednesday, police said.
Albert C. Cabrera who was named the township’s outstanding police officer of the year in 1988, his first year on the job was found by a fellow officer who had volunteered to look in on him when he did not show up for his shift Wednesday, Lt. Timothy Kelly said.
Officer Robert Conlon found Cabrera in the bedroom formerly used by his 10-month-old daughter. Cabrera had a gunshot wound to the head and a gun in his hand. Investigators placed the time of death at about 10 p.m. Monday, Kelly said.
“Our investigation concluded that it was definitely a self-inflicted wound,” Kelly said.
Cabrera was depressed about his separation from his wife and daughter, Kelly said. The wife obtained a restraining order from a Jersey City Family Court judge on April 19 to keep him away from her and the child. She had been living with her mother in Jersey City since the separation, Kelly said.
He said he did not know why Cabrera’s wife had sought the restraining order.
The depression did not show in Cabrera’s work, Kelly said.
“The department is in complete shock,” Kelly said. “He was a very personable young man. He was an excellent police officer, a very conscientious patrolman.”

Keywords: NORTH BERGEN; POLICE; SUICIDE

MAN AND FIREFIGHTER INJURED IN BLAZE

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Wednesday, May 15, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B03

An 82-year-old man and a borough firefighter remained hospitalized Tuesday after a fire that heavily damaged a single-family home.
Although police said Justin D. Mahon of 4 Rutgers Terrace suffered a heart attack, a spokeswoman at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood could not confirm the report. Mahon was listed in stable condition.
Fair Lawn firefighter Joseph Jasinski, who was overcome by smoke during the Monday evening blaze, was in stable condition at the hospital, Fair Lawn Fire Chief John Mamo said. Two firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion at the hospital and released. Three others were treat at the scene for heat exhaustion.
Mahon was unconscious in the kitchen when firefighters reached him, Mamo said. Mahon’s wife and daughter were not home when the fire broke out.
“He was apparently trying to make his way out of the house and was overcome by the heat,” Mamo said.
Mahon had no pulse when they found him, but was revived by two firefighters, said Mamo. About 50 firefighters fought the blaze, which appeared to be accidental, and had it under control in about 15 minutes, he said. It started in the family room and spread quickly through the house, causing heat and smoke damage.

Keywords: FAIR LAWN; HOUSING; FIRE

TERROR, A CRASH, A CHASE, AND ARRESTS 3 TOWNS, 20 CARS, 100 MPH

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 15, 1991

The Record (New Jersey)| Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01

Two men were captured Tuesday after breaking into an Oradell home, tying up and robbing two women, and leading police on a chase involving about 20 patrol cars through three towns, police said.
Robert J. Davis, 37, of Little Ferry and Gary M. Pereira, 29, of Hackensack had entered a Soldier Hill Road home sometime before 10:30 a.m., tied up the residents, and stole their jewelry, Oradell Detective Sgt. Scott Bonsper said.
The victims, whom Bonsper declined to identify, were not injured. One of them removed the tape the suspects had used to cover her mouth, and then she called police.
Bonsper said he went to the house with other Oradell police officers and interviewed the victims. “I came out of the house to go to my car, and I was flagged down by a witness to an accident that had just happened a block away from the house,” he said.
The descriptions of the people in the car matched the suspects described by the victims, Bonsper said. They apparently had parked in a parking lot at an office building on Kinderkamack Road; when they tried to make a hasty escape, their car collided with another northbound car.
Bonsper said he then radioed area police departments. A Rochelle Park officer saw the car traveling south on Route 17, and a chase began, he said.
“The speed at which the men were traveling, they could not be allowed back on a main thoroughfare,” said Bonsper, who added that the cars drove as fast as 100 mph during the chase. The suspects were going through stop signs and red lights without stopping, he said.
By the time the chase ended at a police roadblock on Pascack Road, at the Paramus-Washington Township line, police from the two communities and from Oradell, Emerson, Rochelle Park, and Westwood had become involved.
Jewelry from the home was found in the car, Bonsper said.
Davis and Pereira were each charged with kidnapping, robbery, theft, and burglary, and their case will be referred to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Bonsper said. Paramus police are expected to charge Davis and Pereira with resisting arrest, he added. They were being held in the Bergen County Jail on $100,000 bail each.

Keywords: ORADELL; ROBBERY; MOTOR VEHICLE; ACCIDENT; VIOLATION

Caption: 2 COLOR PHOTOS – JOHN DECKER / THE RECORD – Police handcuffing the two suspects in a robbery in Oradell that led to a high-speed car chase through three towns Tuesday.

FORMER RIDGEWOOD MAN IS SLAIN IN VERMONT VICTIM OF FRIEND’S EX-LOVER

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, May 12, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

A 26-year-old former Ridgewood resident who moved to Vermont because of his love of skiing and the outdoors was hunted down and killed by the ex-boyfriend of a woman with whom he was friendly, authorities said Saturday.
Jonathan D. Herz, a graduate of Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes, was shot in the head before dawn Thursday outside his house in Johnson, Vt., said Lamoille County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Parry.
Herz was an unlucky bystander in Randy Manosh and Muriel McMahon’s troubled relationship. Authorities said Manosh also killed McMahon’s roommate, Nancy Lowe, who was shot in the head with a .22-caliber revolver while she slept. Manosh later committed suicide, they said.
Parry declined to comment on the relationship between Herz and McMahon, 30.
Authorities gave the following account:
Manosh, 32, went looking for McMahon about 1 a.m. at her Morrisville, Vt., residence and, not finding her, killed Lowe. Upon learning McMahon was with a friend in Johnson, Manosh hitchhiked there.
Manosh tracked McMahon to Herz’s residence, a camp at the end of a logging road, surrounded by pastures and maple trees. In a house filled with family photos and outdoor gear, Herz was killed with a single shot to the head about 1:30 a.m. Manosh dragged the landscaper’s body to the back yard, where he killed Herz’s dog, and then went after his ex-girlfriend, police said.
McMahon ran screaming through the woods to the nearest mobile home and summoned help. Parry said that while officers were interviewing McMahon, Manosh sneaked behind the mobile home and shot her through the kitchen window. He then fatally shot himself.
Manosh, the son of a prominent Vermont developer and nephew of Lamoille County Sheriff Gardner Manosh, had an extensive arrest record, including his fourth for drunken driving the week before the shootings.
McMahon, who was in critical condition from a head wound, had lived with Manosh as recently as November.
Surviving Herz are his father, Peter; his mother, Anne Bean Herz; and two brothers, Mark and Peter.
A family friend reached in Vermont said of Herz, “He was a wonderful boy. He was warm. He was full of life, a good friend, and good helpmate. He was all the things that you want your son to grow up to be.”

Keywords: RIDGEWOOD; MURDER; VERMONT; SHOOTING; JONATHAN D. HERZ

Notes: Bergen page

HUDSON COUNTY INVESTIGATOR CHARGED IN AUTO DEATH

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, May 12, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Edition: All Editions | NEWS | Page A05

An investigator for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office was charged Saturday with causing death by auto and driving while intoxicated. A passenger in his car died after the vehicle struck a traffic light, then a tree.
Hudson County Prosecutor Paul M. DePascale immediately suspended William Heaney, the 30-year-old investigator.
The front-seat passenger, Gregory Blicharz, 29, of Bayonne, died about 4:45 a.m. Saturday at Bayonne Hospital during treatment for a head injury. DePascale said in a news release announcing Heaney’s suspension that the medical examiner would determine the exact cause of death. It was unknown Saturday when an autopsy would be performed.
Shortly after 3 a.m. Saturday, Heaney’s car left the roadway at Kennedy Boulevard and North Street, police said. They said it struck and knocked over a traffic light, then came to rest against a tree.
Bayonne police administered a Breathalyzer test to Heaney, who lives in Jersey City, and determined that his blood-alcohol level was above the level at which a person is presumed to be too intoxicated to drive, DePascale said in the release. Policy dictates that any case involving a member of the prosecutor’s staff be referred to the state Attorney General’s Office, which DePascale said he would do Monday.

Keywords: HUDSON COUNTY; MOTOR VEHICLE; DEATH; VICTIM; ACCIDENT; ALCOHOL; ABUSE; ATTORNEY; WILLIAM HEANEY; GREGORY BLICHARZ

FORMER RIDGEWOOD MAN IS SLAIN IN VERMONT; VICTIM OF FRIEND’S EX-LOVER

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, May 12, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

Keywords: RIDGEWOOD; MURDER; VERMONT; SHOOTING; JONATHAN D. HERZ

Notes: Bergen page

FASTER FINGERPRINTS FOILING FELONS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, May 11, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS Page A01

Christopher Villone was in a Bergen County Jail cell on burglary charges one day in late March when investigators walked in and told him he was being charged with four more counts of burglary.
The state’s year-old Automated Fingerprint Identification System had analyzed prints found at a burglary scene in River Edge and identified Villone as a suspect. He was subsequently tied to three other break-ins.
Without the automated system, it’s unlikely that Villone, a 19-year-old Bergenfield resident, could have been tied to the additional burglaries, police said.
Until recently, police in North Jersey could not take full advantage of the computer because they had to travel to Trenton to use it.
But last month, the system was installed at the state police barracks in Totowa. Officials are looking forward to the benefits it will bring.
The computer has 1 million fingerprints in its memory and can identify suspects within 23 minutes.
Since its installation in May 1990, it has identified suspects in more than 360 cases, including 28 homicides, state police Sgt. Phil Boots said.
But before the system came to the Totowa barracks April 23, only five of those identifications were for Bergen County crimes. Other North Jersey law enforcement agencies fared little better, Boots said.
Before computerization, a detective who took fingerprints from a crime scene had to compare them with file cards containing fingerprints of known suspects, Boots said.
It would take 167 years to do what the computer does each time it is presented with a print from a crime scene.

Keywords: NEW JERSEY; POLICE; COMPUTER; TECHNOLOGY; CRIME

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – Linda DeVries operating computerized fingerprint system.

SUSPECT SOUGHT IN TWO ATTEMPTED ABDUCTIONS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B03

Police in the borough and Hasbrouck Heights are searching for a suspect in the attempted abductions of a Lodi teenager a month ago and of a Rutherford teen on Sunday.
Although descriptions of vehicles used in the incidents are different, descriptions of the suspects are so similar police believe the same man was responsible for both, Rutherford Police Lt. Steven Nienstedt said.
The Hasbrouck Heights incident happened about 2 p.m., April 2, at the intersection of Boulevard and Baldwin avenues, said Hasbrouck Heights Detective Bill Castiglione. The victim, a 16-year-old Lodi girl, reported that a man approached her as she walked along Boulevard Avenue. The man then had “sexual contact” with the girl and tried to abduct her, Castiglione said.
The suspect was described as a 25- to 35-year-old Hispanic male, driving a black, midsize car, possibly with four doors.
Rutherford police said a man fitting that description grabbed a 17-year-old borough girl by the arms on Orient Way at Winslow Place about 9:40 p.m. Sunday. The suspect, said to be about 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighing about 120 pounds, with dark complexion and short brown hair, spoke Spanish to the girl before grabbing her. He then fled in a “newer-model” pickup truck. The truck had a white cap with windows and a dark-color stripe on the side.
A second suspect was seen standing near the truck during the Rutherford incident, Nienstedt said. Anyone with information on either incident should call Rutherford police at 939-6000, or Hasbrouck Heights police at 288-1000.

Keywords: RUTHERFORD; HASBROUCK HEIGHTS; CHILD; KIDNAPPING; PROBE; POLICE

Caption: DRAWING – Police composite.