COPING WITH THE FEAR NEW GROUP AIDS COPS SPOUSES

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, April 19, 1991

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

One July evening three years ago, as Mary Ann Sorace and her two daughters tidied up in the kitchen of their Paramus home after dinner, a voice over the police scanner sent them into a panic.
“Officer needs assistance,” came the call from her husband, Bergen County Police Officer Edward M. Sorace.
Sorace was in the middle of a confrontation with two drug suspects, one armed with a gun. He ended up arresting one, but the other escaped and was captured later. Sorace wasn’t able to get in touch with his wife for some time.
“The only thing I remembered was being glued to the radio and being afraid to leave it,” Mary Sorace said. “It must have been four hours later before I found out he was OK.”
After four years of coping alone with the fears and frustrations caused by her husband’s job, Sorace resigned in October from her job in the Paramus school system to found a new support group, Concerns of Police Spouses of Bergen County (COPS).
“It’s the stress of not knowing when they leave the house if they are going to be returning, or if you’re going to get that fateful telephone call that something has happened to them,” she said.
The organization, Sorace said, would not become a “wives gripe group.” It will have available to it a family therapist, a minister who is a retired policeman, and other professionals who have pledged to either counsel or help spouses obtain information that would help them cope.
COPS, which had its first meeting last month, is one of a number of such New Jersey groups, including the 20-year-old Pascack Valley Police Wives Association.
Dr. Katherine W. Ellison, a psychology professor at Montclair State College and author of several books on police and stress, said such groups are helpful because they tend to lessen the sense of isolation that police spouses can feel.
“The wives I’ve worked with want to know about the job, but their husbands want to keep them innocent,” Ellison said in an interview. “The sweet little angels know a heck of a lot more than you think. . . . An important thing that can be done is to have the wives teaching the new wives how to cope positively.”
Sorace acknowledged that one of her biggest challenges would be reaching the spouses. Eileen Neillands, wife of Bergen County Police Chief Peter Neillands, and Judith Betten, wife of Rochelle Park Police Chief William Betten, were among 11 wives who attended the first meeting.
Chief Neillands, the evening’s keynote speaker, testified to a host of shirked familial responsibilities during the first 30 of his 40 years in law enforcement, starting with the Leonia Police Department in 1951.
“We get so smart too late,” Neillands said. “I hope people will learn from us, what we did wrong. Mary [Sorace] is going through some of those things that are difficult to go through, and she is crying out, Help me. Some of these other people, they are silent, but they want to be helped, too." Neillands concluded his talk by saying he wished he had not while trying to cure some of society's ills by doing police work abandoned his family all those years. He said he would do all he could to help the group succeed. Eileen Neillands seized on a symbol of the isolation spouses feel when she said that, for all his sins, Neillands was a good husband except at the annual police officers ball. She said the men tend to leave their wives on one side of the room and mingle with fellow officers on the other side. The Neillandses, who have been married for 41 years, have among their five children a son who is a policeman in the Bronx and a daughter about to marry a policeman. "You have to learn to do a lot of things," Eileen Neillands said, "including driving yourself to the hospital to deliver your baby. I did it with my fifth one. He was tied up in an accident or something." Ed Sorace, who said he supports his wife's efforts, said the group would be well worth it if it helps just one police family cope. He sat in the background during the meeting with the couple's 7-year-old daughter, Stefanie. The Rev. Kim F. Capwell, rector of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Glen Rock, said idealism leads many, in their desire to solve their communities problems, to seek law enforcement careers, but also has the effect of isolating them from society and, most acutely, from their families. Capwell spoke from experience. "I was married to a police department for 12 years before I took an early retirement and went into the seminary," he said. "I was very lucky that my spouse stuck with me through 10 solid years of nights with no rotation. We actually got to appreciate that I worked 8 at night till 4 in the morning." Rochelle Park's Chief Betten said he often asks new recruits if they are aware of the demands of the career. "I ask them,Are you aware what a police officer’s job is? ” Betten said. ” Are you aware that you have to work Saturdays, Sunday, holidays, nights?Oh, yeah, they reply. Later on, after they’ve become policemen, suddenly the wives will call you: `How come my husband is working on Christmas day? Many spouses don’t know what to expect when they get into this.”
The next meeting of COPS is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Paramus High School, room 616.

Keywords: POLICE; FAMILY; COUNSELING; ORGANIZATION; MENTAL; HEALTH; PSYCHOLOGY

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – STEVE AUCHARD / THE RECORD – Bergen County Police Officer Edward M. Sorace giving his 7-year-old daughter, Stefanie, a kiss as he prepares to go to work. Looking on is his wife, Mary Ann Sorace, who founded a new support group for spouses of law enforcement officers.

MAN KILLS ESTRANGED WIFE, SELF; SLITS HER THROAT AND CUTS HIS OWN

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, February 17, 1991

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

About 7:30 a.m. Friday, the day Mladen Fatovic was going to die, he called his supervisor at work, said he was not feeling well, and asked for the day off.
Sometime before 3 p.m. that day, the 48-year-old man went to the home of his estranged wife in Cliffside Park and slit her throat.
He then went back to the Little Ferry apartment he moved into at the outset of the couple’s separation about six months ago and killed himself, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.
Fatovic had cuts to his throat, his wrist, his chest, “all over his body,” Fahy said.
A kitchen knife with a 8-inch blade, believed to have been used in both killings, was found in Fatovic’s bedroom, Fahy added. A note at the scene indicated the death was suicide, he said.
Autopsies will be performed today on the bodies of Fatovic and his wife, Marija, 43, Fahy said. The post-mortems are expected to confirm the cause and exact time of the deaths; otherwise, the investigation is considered closed, he said.
Henry Fatovic, the couple’s 20-year-old son, had left their Cliffside Park home for work about 7 a.m., and their other son, Robert, 21, left about an hour later. Henry Fatovic discovered his mother’s body in the bedroom when he returned home from work about 3 p.m. Friday, and called police.
“Her throat was slashed and it appears that she bled to death,” Fahy said.
There were signs of struggle in the house, Fahy said, but the door was locked when Henry Fatovic returned home and there was no sign of forced entry and no indication that anything was taken from the house.
Investigators went to Fatovic’s apartment because he had a key to the family house, Fahy said.
Homicide investigators from the Prosecutor’s Office, Cliffside Park police detectives, and Little Ferry police arrived at 36 Marshall Ave. in Little Ferry about 4 p.m. to find Fatovic’s fully clothed body on the bedroom floor, he said.
On Saturday afternoon, at the modest single-family West End Avenue home in Cliffside Park, the mail was uncollected and the porch light was on. An old Chevrolet truck with a “For Sale” sign in the window was in the driveway, in front of a blue Ford Thunderbird.
No one was home, and neighbors were not talking. A 20-year-old man who said that he had worked for four years at Shop Rite with Henry Fatovic and that he knew the family well said he never noticed any discord. He said he was shaken by the deaths, and declined to give his name.
Nino Fatovic of Little Ferry would say no more than that Mladen Fatovic was his brother. Neither son could be reached.
Marija Fatovic was an aide at North Bergen Senior Citizens Nutrition Center. The center could not be reached for comment.
David Ivanac, 49, supervisor at Rochelle Park’s FIMS Manufacturing Corp., where Fatovic was an assembly-line machinist, said he was a good, hard-working man who was sometimes impatient and hot-tempered.
“He loves his wife so much; he was so jealous,” Ivanac said. “I said to him, `Stay away. You know, two people, they can’t live together. These are nice people, no question about it.
“I can expect him to do something, like walk away, or something like that, but never something like this. “
Ivanac said he and Fatovic knew each other as children in Sestrunj, a small island of about 500 people, near Zadar in the Croatian republic of Yugoslavia, but weren’t friends then. They worked together in France for about 11 years and came to the United States about seven years ago, he said.
The Fatovics lived with his wife’s brother for a few months before moving to the West End Avenue home, Ivanac said. He said he did not know the cause of the couple’s separation.
Fahy said the couple was in the process of getting a divorce.
Ivanac said Fatovic often worked about 50 hours per week, but that he left an hour early Thursday to have dinner with his son Henry. Then he called in sick Friday morning.

Keywords: MURDER; FAMILY; SUICIDE; CLIFFSIDE PARK; LITTLE FERRY; MLADEN FATOVIC

SON HELD IN KILLING OF MOTHER; SHE WAS STABBED, BURNED IN RAMSEY

By Michael O. Allen and Chrisena A. Coleman, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, September 19, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page A01

The youngest son of a Ramsey woman who was stabbed to death and burned 10 days ago was charged with murder and arson Tuesday.
Lee Vozza, 27, who relatives said lived off-and-on at his parents home at 128 Deer Trail North, was arrested in Rye, N.Y. He was being held without bail in Westchester County Jail pending a psychiatric evaluation.
Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said his office would seek to have Vozza extradited to New Jersey. The prosecutor charges that Vozza stabbed his mother, Stephini Vozza, 54, 11 times in the neck and torso before setting the family house on fire in the early morning of Sept. 9.
Assistant Prosecutor Sharyn Peiffer said arson investigators found a blanket that smelled of gasoline next to the victim’s body.
However, Peiffer said, “She died of stab wounds. She did not die of carbon monoxide inhalation or burning due to the fire.”
Peiffer, head of homicide investigations, refused to comment on a possible motive for the killing.
The fire raged through the modern wood-and-glass, split-level home for about 30 minutes near 4 a.m. on Sept. 9. The contents of the house were burned beyond recognition, Peiffer said, and authorities could not determine if any items might be missing.
“The only charges filed right now are the murder and the arson charges,” Peiffer said. “Investigation is continuing into what was missing from the house. “
Fahy said Ramsey police put out a missing person alarm and stolen car report after determining that Lee Vozza and the victim’s 1980 Oldsmobile were gone after the fire.
Police in Rye found a disoriented Vozza at the Metro-North railroad station in that community early Tuesday.
“He was just sitting there looking real spacey, just staring straight ahead,” said Rye Police Detective Gene Berry.
Berry talked to Vozza, then led him across a parking lot to the nearby police station, where he asked Vozza his name and checked it through a police computer.
Peiffer said Vozza had apparently been staying at different New York locations since the fire.

Keywords: MURDER ; ARSON ; FIRE ; FAMILY ; RAMSEY

SON HELD IN KILLING OF MOTHER; SHE WAS STABBED, BURNED IN RAMSEY

By Michael O. Allen and Chrisena A. Coleman, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, September 19, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page A01

The youngest son of a Ramsey woman who was stabbed to death and burned 10 days ago was charged with murder and arson Tuesday.

Lee Vozza, 27, who relatives said lived off-and-on at his parents home at 128 Deer Trail North, was arrested in Rye, N.Y. He was being held without bail in Westchester County Jail pending a psychiatric evaluation.

Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said his office would seek to have Vozza extradited to New Jersey. The prosecutor charges that Vozza stabbed his mother, Stephini Vozza, 54, 11 times in the neck and torso before setting the family house on fire in the early morning of Sept. 9.

Assistant Prosecutor Sharyn Peiffer said arson investigators found a blanket that smelled of gasoline next to the victim’s body.

However, Peiffer said, “She died of stab wounds. She did not die of carbon monoxide inhalation or burning due to the fire.”

Peiffer, head of homicide investigations, refused to comment on a possible motive for the killing.

The fire raged through the modern wood-and-glass, split-level home for about 30 minutes near 4 a.m. on Sept. 9. The contents of the house were burned beyond recognition, Peiffer said, and authorities could not determine if any items might be missing.

“The only charges filed right now are the murder and the arson charges,” Peiffer said. “Investigation is continuing into what was missing from the house.”

Fahy said Ramsey police put out a missing person alarm and stolen car report after determining that Lee Vozza and the victim’s 1980 Oldsmobile were gone after the fire.

Police in Rye found a disoriented Vozza at the Metro-North railroad station in that community early Tuesday.

“He was just sitting there looking real spacey, just staring straight ahead,” said Rye Police Detective Gene Berry.

Berry talked to Vozza, then led him across a parking lot to the nearby police station, where he asked Vozza his name and checked it through a police computer.

Peiffer said Vozza had apparently been staying at different New York locations since the fire.