PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This is a reasonable request from a crime survivor whose family was ferociously mistreated by the Somerset County prosecutor at the time, Geoffrey Soriano. Here’s a look at the sheer incompetence of the investigation that led to Soriano to rashly label this a murder-suicide: Prosecutors accused John Sheridan or murdering his wife in their master bedroom, then somehow stabbing himself in the neck, pouring gasoline around the room, and lighting it on fire. They never presented a motive, there was no history of violence, no gambling debt, no drugs, not even a theory to why Sheridan, a respected lawyer and hospital executive with no history of violence, would suddenly snap. Nor did they recover the knife that Sheridan supposedly used to stab himself. - No one dusted for fingerprints outside the master bedroom to see if an intruder had entered the house through one of four unlocked doors. - Two months after the killings, an insurance adjuster inspecting the home found a bag full of jewelry in a closet off the master bedroom. Investigators had somehow missed it. - It was a private autopsy paid by the Sheridans that revealed the knife that killed Joyce Sheridan could not possibly be the same knife that killed John Sheridan, as prosecutors had suggested. That alerted prosecutors to the fact that they were missing the weapon that killed John Sheridan."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENTARY: "An unsolved murder, a simple request," by Editorial Page Editor Tom Moran, published by NJ.com, on February 01, 2022.
GIST: "Mark Sheridan and his three brothers still don’t know who murdered their parents at their Somerset County home in 2014, a wound that was deepened by the state of New Jersey when prosecutors falsely concluded that their father, John Sheridan, killed their mother, Joyce, and then took his own life.
That lurid story crumbled under close inspection after the Sheridan children essentially launched their own investigation, revealing solid evidence that demolished the murder-suicide theory. Eventually the medical examiner reversed the prosecutor’s conclusion. But the real killer remains at large, and the knife that supposedly killed John Sheridan has never been found.
Now Mark Sheridan, their son, is asking authorities to run down a fresh possibility -- to see if the knife found on another murder suspect the day after his parents were killed might indeed be the missing knife. He notes, with horror, that the suspect, George Bratsenis, admitted stabbing a man to death in Hudson County, then burning down his home to hide the evidence – exactly what happened in the Sheridan case.
Sheridan is not saying these killings are connected, only that prosecutors should check. He wants them to see if the knife found the day after his parents’ murder might match the family’s kitchen set, which was missing a knife, or if the knife has traces of blood that could be matched against his parents’ DNA.
“One simple courtesy,” he called it in an open letter to Somerset prosecutors and the acting state attorney general, Andrew Bruck.
This is a reasonable request from a crime survivor whose family was ferociously mistreated by the Somerset County prosecutor at the time, Geoffrey Soriano. Here’s a look at the sheer incompetence of the investigation that led to Soriano to rashly label this a murder-suicide:
· Prosecutors accused John Sheridan or murdering his wife in their master bedroom, then somehow stabbing himself in the neck, pouring gasoline around the room, and lighting it on fire. They never presented a motive, there was no history of violence, no gambling debt, no drugs, not even a theory to why Sheridan, a respected lawyer and hospital executive with no history of violence, would suddenly snap. Nor did they recover the knife that Sheridan supposedly used to stab himself.
· No one dusted for fingerprints outside the master bedroom to see if an intruder had entered the house through one of four unlocked doors.
· Two months after the killings, an insurance adjuster inspecting the home found a bag full of jewelry in a closet off the master bedroom. Investigators had somehow missed it.
· It was a private autopsy paid by the Sheridans that revealed the knife that killed Joyce Sheridan could not possibly be the same knife that killed John Sheridan, as prosecutors had suggested. That alerted prosecutors to the fact that they were missing the weapon that killed John Sheridan.
Mark Sheridan concedes that he has no evidence showing a connection between these two 2014 murder cases. “I’ve got all kinds of people waving me off, saying there is no connection,” he says. “And if someone checks and tells me no, there isn’t, I get that. It was a long shot to begin with. But there’s no harm in asking.”
It is also possible that the FBI or state investigators have already made this connection and tested Sheridan’s theory on their own. Investigators rarely comment on murders cases that remain open.
But one hopes they can make an exception and offer Sheridan some assurance. At a minimum, Sheridan says, prosecutors should share the picture of the knife they found in Bratsenis’ car the day after his parents died. “There’s a photo in their files,” Sheridan says. “Just ask Connecticut to press ‘send.’”
The victims in both these murders had deep political ties in New Jersey. John Sheridan served as Commissioner of Transportation in Gov. Tom Kean’s cabinet, and at the time of his death was CEO of Camden’s Cooper University Hospital, where he worked closely with the hospital’s chairman and champion, George Norcross, the Democratic political boss. Mark Sheridan is the former counsel for the state Republican Party.
In the second murder, the victim was Michael Galdieri, 52, the son of former state Sen. James Galdieri of Jersey City. A Hudson County political operative, Sean Caddle, has pleaded guilty to hiring two men to commit the murder – Bomani Africa, of Philadelphia, and Bratsenis, in whose car police found the knife that Sheridan wants examined.
Stayed tuned for more on this case. Caddle and Bomani both have likely been wearing recording devices since their guilty pleas, indicating that prosecutors may be onto something even more serious than the Galtieri murder.
In the meantime, the investigation has opened old wounds for the Sheridans, whose parents’ murders remain unsolved. After their shabby treatment, one hopes prosecutors offer them the simple consolation of meeting Mark Sheridan’s reasonable request."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/02/an-unsolved-murder-a-simple-request-moran.html
