MAN HELD IN STUDENT’S DEATH PAROLEE FACES MURDER CHARGE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, April 14, 1991

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

A 23-year-old Spring Valley, N.Y., man on parole for possession of a loaded weapon was being held without bail Saturday in the stabbing death of Kissinger Shiimi, a Ramapo College student leader.
Peter Ralph Finley, who police say is a Jamaican national, was arrested in Brooklyn on Friday. He was charged with second-degree murder and was being held in the Rockland County Correctional Center pending a hearing.
Shiimi, a 30-year-old senior majoring in political science, died about 5:30 a.m. April 6 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y. He had been stabbed five times by one of two men arguing with him over a fender bender outside the Atlantic Gas ‘n Go, a Spring Valley gas station and convenience store, police said.
Tom M. Jones, Ramapo College’s director of public relations, said Finley’s arrest is a relief to students who have been grappling with the violent death of Shiimi, whom they regarded as a peacemaker and bridge-builder.
Hinyangerwa Asheeke, Namibia’s ambassador to the United Nations, on Friday escorted Shiimi’s body back to Namibia, the southwest African country where Shiimi fought oppression, then escaped to come to the United States to build a better life.
Asheeke was Shiimi’s uncle, but they first met about a month ago at a reception celebrating Namibia’s first year of independence from South Africa.
At Ramapo, Shiimi won the Aly Makwaia Scholarship named for an African student at the college who was stabbed to death in 1987.
On the day he died, Shiimi and two fellow students had gone to a nightclub in Spring Valley. They stopped at the gas station about 4:30 a.m., when the car the three were traveling in tapped the bumper of the other car. Police refused to say who was driving the car that carried Shiimi.
Two men in the other car argued with Shiimi and one stabbed him, police said. The men, along with a woman in their company, fled in a red Nissan with a white stripe. Police described both men as having Jamaican accents, and said one had a gold front tooth. It was unclear from police reports Saturday whether Finley has a gold tooth.
At the Spring Valley Police Department’s request, detectives from the New York Police Department’s 70th Precinct in Brooklyn had been checking the home of Finley’s relatives on Sterling Street, said Sgt. Mary Wrensen, a city police spokeswoman. They found Finley there about 8:30 p.m. Friday. He had an airline ticket to Florida, police said.
Police are looking for the other man and the woman. No further details of the investigation were available.

Keywords: NEW JERSEY; COLLEGE; STUDENT; MURDER

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

MAN WAS STRANGLED, AUTOPSY REVEALS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, December 13, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B02

An elderly Bergenfield man whose son is charged with his murder was strangled by hand and with a rope or string, according to an autopsy report disclosed Wednesday. Robert Tillman, 73, was also struck about the face with a blunt object, had two broken ribs, and was missing a couple of teeth, but his death was caused by the strangulation, said Bergen County Assistant Prosecutor Sharyn Peiffer, head of homicide investigations.

Peiffer would not say what led investigators to Bruce Tillman, 31, who had lived with his father at 310 Phelps Ave. for about a month before the killing Sunday. Tillman was charged with murder Monday and was being held in the Bergen County Jail on $750,000 bail.

The criminal complaint against Tillman said undisclosed evidence found at the house led police to charge him.

Tillman and his brother, Robert Tillman Jr. of North Bergen, went to Bergenfield police Sunday night to report finding their father’s body in the house. A search of the crime scene found no sign of forced entry or robbery, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said Monday. Robert Tillman Jr. was not charged.

Police said they believe the murder occurred about noon Sunday, following a “fierce altercation” between the father and son. The two men had bruises on their bodies, Fahy said.
Peiffer said authorities believe the elder Tillman sustained his injuries during the fight.

CLOSTER MAN’S KILLING PROBED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, November 3, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star | NEWS | Page A03

New York City police on Friday continued their investigation of the shooting death of a 21-year-old Closter man whose body was found Thursday near the Henry Hudson Parkway in Upper Manhattan.

Police still do not have a motive or know the circumstances surrounding the death of Michael Papalia of 21 Oak St., said Detective Joseph Galagher, a police spokesman.

Detective Michael Pisano of the 34th Precinct, who is investigating, said that although police found $6 on Papalia, they are not ruling out robbery.

Papalia was shot twice in the head.

Early indications were that the death was not related to drugs or violence connected to Halloween, Pisano said.

Two key questions that investigators are pursuing are what Papalia was doing in New York and how long he had been dead, Galagher said.

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.