Fort Lee Archives - MICHAEL O. ALLEN

AUTOPSY CONFIRMS MURDER, SUICIDE

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, May 10, 1992

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

Investigators have ruled that the death of a Fort Lee man and his 5-year-old daughter was a murder-suicide, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said Saturday.

Raif Gandell, 42, shot his daughter, Kira Gandell, twice in the head before shooting himself through the mouth, Fahy said. The bodies were discovered about 8:05 a.m. Friday on the bed with a .32-caliber automatic handgun between them.

Fahy said an autopsy indicated the two died between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Gandell and his wife, Jill Markowitz, of the Half Moon House Apartments at 2400 Hudson Terrace were in marriage counseling and he had been depressed over the marital problems, Fahy said.

A baby sitter reporting for work the next morning could not enter the apartment because the door was latched with a chain from the inside. However, she found a note from Gandell underneath the door telling her what he had done, and saying that she should call the police.

Markowitz, who was out of state on a business trip, was informed of the deaths Friday. She returned home that day, but could not be reached for comment. Gandell was a medical social worker at Englewood Hospital.

May 10, 1992

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FT. LEE DAD KILLS CHILD, 5, AND SELF

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen and Steven Crabill, Record Staff Writers | Saturday, May 9, 1992

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

A Fort Lee man reportedly depressed over marital problems shot and killed his 5-year-old daughter sometime before dawn Friday, then turned the gun on himself, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.

Kira Gandell was shot twice in the head and Raif Gandell, 42, once in the mouth, Fahy said.

Gandell and his wife, Jill Markowitz, of 2400 Hudson Terrace had been in marriage counseling for some time, Fahy added.

Police found the bodies of Gandell and his daughter on a bed in the family’s second-floor apartment at the Half-Moon House Apartments at 8:05 a.m. A maid-babysitter saw a note beneath the door when she arrived for work but could not enter because a chain on the door was latched from the inside, Fahy said.

A worker at the building said and authorities confirmed that the note said: “Call the police. I killed myself and Kira.”

Police battered down the door and found the bodies on the bed, Fahy said. A .32-caliber automatic pistol was between them.

Markowitz, in Seattle on a business trip, was notified and was returning Friday, Fahy said.

Authorities did not know how long the couple had been married.

Kira was their only child, Fahy said.

Gandell had been employed at Englewood Hospital as a medical social worker counseling patients in need of community services or extended care after leaving the hospital since March 1991, said Shelley Rosenstock, director of communications at the hospital.

May 9, 1992

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BOGOTA MAN DIES IN CAR CRASH

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Sunday, March 15, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A06

A 29-year-old Bogota man apparently lost control of his car and crashed into a light pole base just off the George Washington Bridge before dawn Saturday, killing himself and injuring his passenger.

Peter J. LaSala was pronounced dead at the scene by Englewood Hospital paramedics, said Terry Benczik, a Port Authority spokeswoman. John Leahy Jr., also of Bogota, suffered facial cuts and possible internal injuries, she said.

LaSala was the driver and Leahy his passenger as they returned to New Jersey about 4:30 a.m., Benczik said. The car struck the concrete base of a light pole near the Center Avenue overpass as the car traveled westbound on the lower level of the bridge, Benczik said.

Leahy, who was taken to Englewood Hospital, told investigators he had his eyes closed and did not see how the accident occurred, Benczik said. The pavement was dry, there was no construction nearby, and no evident reason for the accident, she said.

LaSala worked in the parts department for Ford-Lincoln-Mercury in New York City.
His funeral is to be Wednesday.

Notes: Bergen page

March 15, 1992

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POLICE CHIEFS TO GET NEW LEADER

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 17, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page B08

The leadership of the Bergen County Police Chiefs Association changes hands Saturday when Palisades Interstate Parkway Police Chief Vincent R. Arfuso is sworn as the group’s new president.

Arfuso, 59, takes over from Waldwick Police Chief Daniel Lupo. He joined the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police in 1960 and became chief 11 years ago.

Arfuso, a lifelong resident of Fort Lee, said he went into law enforcement to contribute to the public and to his community. He said his goal as president of the chiefs association would be to improve the education of law enforcement officials.

Lupo, 60, said he felt he was productive in his year at the helm.

“I relinquish the gavel to a very competent and worthy man,” he said. “My goal was to develop a stronger relationship between police and the community, and I think we accomplished that. We serve the public, and that is something we must never forget.”

The chiefs association acts as liaison to local police departments in the county and deals with other county agencies, including the Police and Fire Academy of Bergen County. The association also raises funds to help families of law enforcement officials.

East Rutherford Police Chief Gilbert Logatto, who is to be sworn as first vice president on Saturday, is in line to become president next year.

At the ceremony, which takes place at 7 p.m. at The Fiesta in Wood-Ridge, Florio is expected to sign a bill that would provide better survivor benefits to spouses of municipal police and firefighters.

Under the bill, passed recently by the Legislature, spouses of firefighters and officers who die in the line of duty would receive 50 percent of their salary at the time of death, an increase from 35 percent.

January 17, 1992

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GUEST AT FORT LEE MOTEL SOUGHT IN BEATING DEATH

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, January 17, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 1 Star | SPORTS | Page B01

A man who checked into a room at the Palisades Motor Lodge in Fort Lee on Tuesday is being sought for questioning in the beating death of a 26-year-old woman whose body was found in the room, authorities said Thursday.

The manager of the motel at 1415 Bergen Blvd. called police about 4:40 p.m. Wednesday after finding the body of Katherine Gallagher when he went into the room to do maintenance work, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.

Investigators believe the woman may have been staying at the motel since Tuesday evening with the unidentified man, who checked into the room about 7 p.m.

Fahy said an autopsy was not completed Thursday.

Gallagher was a former resident of Bayonne and Union City.

Authorities Thursday did not have a current address.

She was unemployed, Fahy said.

She had worked as a computer operator at Gold Coast Freightways Inc. at 450 Duncan Ave., Jersey City, for two years, but had not worked there in about a year, said a man who identified himself as an official of the company.

He declined to comment further.

January 17, 1992

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TARDINESS LEADS TO ARREST IN HOLDUP

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, January 12, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A07

After a gunman demanded money from a teller at the Lemoine Avenue branch of First Fidelity Bank on Monday and calmly walked out with $935, he was seen driving off in style in a white 1992 Ford Taurus.

Police say the robber was Renard Mercer of Queens and that his getaway car was rented. Mercer was in the lockup at the Queens Borough Central Booking on Friday when Fort Lee detectives caught up with him.

Had he returned the car to Budget Rent-A-Car at La Guardia Airport where he rented it when he was supposed to, Mercer might still be free. As it was, the eyewitness information led detectives first to the rental company, then to the lockup, where Mercer was cooling his heels for failing to return the car, Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said Saturday.

Mercer, 28, had been arrested in Queens about 5:30 p.m. Thursday by the 115th Precinct Anti-Crime Squad. He is awaiting extradition to Fort Lee to face charges of armed robbery and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Walking unobtrusively past several customers, then showing a handgun to the teller, Mercer demanded money and walked back out just as quietly as he came in, Orso said. The bank’s camera got a clear photograph of Mercer, the chief said.

The bank robbery went unnoticed until the alarm sounded, but by that time, the robber had already left.

Using the information from the eyewitness, whom police declined to identify, the Fort Lee police followed the trail to Mercer, Orso said.

He said that bank robberies are not easy to solve, and praised his officers tenacity in tracking Mercer.

Notes: Bergen page

January 12, 1992

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AIDS ACTIVISTS IN SIT-IN AT FIRM WANT NEW DRUG MADE AVAILABLE

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 30, 1991

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

A small group of activists, charging that a Japanese pharmaceutical company is slow to develop an experimental drug for treatment of a cancer associated with AIDS, staged a sit-in at the firm’s U.S. headquarters in Fort Lee on Tuesday.

Bob LaChance of Treatment Action Guerrillas said Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. determined in laboratory tests on animals about two years ago that a compound developed from a bacteria could halt the growth of blood vessels, and could be effective in treating Kaposi’s sarcoma and some forms of breast cancer. Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancer that strikes one in 10 AIDS patients, is a proliferation of blood vessels.

Several companies, including Daiichi, are developing experimental drugs to halt the development of these blood vessels. Daiichi’s high molecular weight sugar compound, known to AIDS researchers and activists as SP-PG, is the first known experimental drug that could halt the formation of the purple tumors of Kaposi’s sarcoma in animals.

“They’ve been dragging their feet developing the drug because they are putting corporate profits over people’s lives,” LaChance said. “They want to make sure there’s a market for this drug before they develop it. They are not concerned about people affected by Kaposi’s sarcoma who are dying by the thousands.”

Thomas Boersig, special consultant to the board of Daiichi, told the activists Tuesday it would be premature to bring the drug to the market.

“Some very basic studies have been done in the laboratory on this compound of ours,” Boersig said. “This is a drug that is still in research. When we talk about development, we are talking about studying the product in man, and we have not done that study yet.”

The discussion was tense but peaceful. But protester Bob Rafsky, a 46-year-old Brooklyn man who said he has been HIV-positive for four years, became angry.

“See this dark mark on my forehead? That’s Kaposi’s sarcoma. It’s going to spread. It’s going to kill me. . . . You are my murderer, in your shirt and tie,” he said.

Boersig said it is not lost on him that people continue to die during the search for an effective drug for Kaposi’s sarcoma. Daiichi, he said, is in a race with other companies to develop an effective drug.

LaChance said he lost his lover of 20 years to Kaposi’s sarcoma five months ago.

The 16 activists, 10 of whom sat in a circle, their wrists inserted in plastic tubes and tied with nylon twine, took over the reception area of the company’s ninth-floor offices at 400 Kelby St.

Caption: PHOTO – JOHN DECKER / THE RECORD – Demonstrators in the offices of Daiichi Pharmaceutical talking with a company consultant, Thomas Boersig.

October 30, 1991

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GLOBAL SEARCH FOR FORT LEE BOY; DAD SUSPECTED IN ABDUCTION

By michael o. allenUncategorizedNo Comments

By Mary Jo Layton and Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writers | Thursday, October 10, 1991

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

An 8-year-old Fort Lee boy was snatched from a street corner and apparently taken to South Korea in a custody dispute, setting off a frantic international search, authorities said Wednesday.
Investigators suspect that Pyung Woo Song, abducted near his North Central Road home Monday morning as he waited for a school bus, is with his father in Seoul. They were trying Wednesday to confirm the boy’s whereabouts with the assistance of South Korean authorities.
“This is unique because of possible parental involvement,” FBI Special Agent William Tonkin said.
“We are trying to ascertain whether or not we have a federal kidnapping here, and I don’t think we have an answer yet because we don’t have enough facts.”
Investigators from the FBI, South Korea, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, and Fort Lee are involved in the case.
Fort Lee police suspect that the boy’s father, Dae Seup Song, also known as Kwi Hwa Song, arranged the abduction after threatening to bring the boy to South Korea against his mother’s wishes, Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said. The parents were estranged, but Orso said authorities believe they share custody.
The chief said investigators spoke with the father Tuesday afternoon from Seoul.
“He denied having anything to do with it,” Orso said. “He said it’s a shame. She is doing this to hide the boy.”
The boy’s mother, Eun Sook Choi, in an interview at police headquarters Wednesday afternoon, said she was told that the boy is safe and with his father in Seoul. Choi, through an interpreter, said her sister called from Korea at 4 a.m. Wednesday and told her she had spoken with the boy briefly.
“She is relieved that the boy is OK,” said interpreter Peter Lee.
“He is with his father and uninjured. He cried on the phone and said he wants to return to the United States to live with his mother,” Lee said.
The family moved from Virginia to Fort Lee in July and enrolled the boy in School 3, Orso said.
Police suspect the father fled to South Korea, fearing prosecution for bringing illegal immigrants into the United States, Orso said. A spokesman with the Newark office of the INS would not comment on the case.
Authorities spent most of Wednesday unsuccessfully attempting to arrange a phone call between the mother and boy, the chief said.
Authorities were not aware of the boy’s abduction until midnight Monday, when his mother reported it to Fort Lee police.
School 3 Principal John Caputo said school officials noticed the boy was not present at the start of school day, about 9 a.m., and immediately tried to contact his parents.
The boy’s grandmother told investigators through an interpreter that she thought the boy was with his mother. The boy’s mother was attending school all day and did not return home until 11 p.m. When she realized the boy wasn’t there, she called a friend and went to police, Orso said.
“The problem was letting all these hours pass not knowing anything was wrong,” he said.
Language and cultural barriers also hampered the investigation, Orso said.
“Had we been notified of the threat, we definitely would have taken it seriously and had the boy under close surveillance and possibly could have avoided the tragedy,” he said. “I must ask the Korean community to tell its people that we, the Police Department, are here to assist and protect them.”
Police canvassed the neighborhood at the base of the George Washington Bridge on Tuesday. Fliers with a picture of the youth were circulated in the area.
A neighbor reported seeing an Asian man drag Pyung Woo Song into a black Lincoln Town Car driven by another Asian man.
Fort Lee police suspect the boy was taken to Canada and flown to Seoul. At 10 a.m. Wednesday, a police broadcast in Canada alerted authorities to look for a black sedan with two men suspected of kidnapping a Fort Lee boy. Later in the day, police learned of the mother’s conversation with her sister in Korea about her son being there.

Keywords: FORT LEE; CHILD; KIDNAPPING; MARRIAGE; FAMILY; SOUTH KOREA

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – PYUNG WOO SONG

October 10, 1991

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2 N.Y. MEN HELD IN ARMED THEFT OF CAR IN FORT LEE

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, September 19, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B06

Two New York City men were arrested after they robbed a couple of their car at gunpoint in a store parking lot near the police station Tuesday, police said.
Dwayne McDaniel and Ross Ramseur, both 21, were arrested shortly after the 11:35 p.m. robbery in the parking lot of the ShopRite at 1355 Inwood Terrace, a couple of doors from police headquarters at 1325 Inwood.
Patrolman Philip Ross was pulling out of the Police Department parking lot when he was stopped by two people who told him that their car had just been taken from them by two armed men, Police Chief John Orso said.
Ross relayed descriptions of the suspects, the car they came in, and the stolen car over the police radio.
Fort Lee Detective Tom Sweeney saw the stolen car, a blue 1991 Acura, heading north on Center Avenue, near Main Street, and pulled it over at the Bridge Plaza South intersection, Orso said.
The suspects had the .44-caliber revolver used in the robbery, the chief said.
Orso declined to identify the victims, except to say the woman, 23, is a borough resident, and the man, also 23, is from Connecticut.
The charges against McDaniel and Ramseur, now being held in the Bergen County Jail on $20,000 bail each, are two counts each of aggravated assault, possession of a weapon, and receiving stolen property.

Keywords: FORT LEE; ROBBERY; WEAPON; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

September 19, 1991

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GUNMAN HIJACKS TRUCK ON ROUTE 46

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

A gunman hijacked a cargo-filled Caldor truck on Route 46 near the George Washington Bridge on Thursday night and then met up with an accomplice who took the driver to upstate New York, where he was released unharmed, authorities said.

June 29, 1991

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