New probe into unsolved 2014 murders of New Jersey couple
‘They couldn’t have done a worse job if they intended to mess up that investigation,’ lawyer says of initial murder case
The office of the New Jersey Attorney General will investigate the unusual murders of a well-known couple in the state who were found killed in their home in 2014 but have yet to be solved.
The news of the fresh probe comes after the WNYC Studios podcast series Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery reviewed the deaths of John and Joyce Sheridan.
They were found in their bedroom early on 28 September 2014 after being stabbed to death and the room having been set aflame, Gothamist reported.
The podcast series followed the investigation into the unsolved murders as well as Mr Sheridan’s connections to New Jersey politics. He served as the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation between 1982 and 1985.
The Sheridan family has requested that the state attorney general get involved in the case several times. According to WNYC, detectives with the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office thought the killings were part of a murder-suicide and didn’t fully review the case.
“Our office is investigating this matter, and we will follow the evidence wherever it leads,” a New Jersey AG spokesman said, Gothamist reported.
WNYC reported that the investigation was started after three people with ties to the Sheridans said they were contacted by a state investigator.
The family rejected the notion that it was a murder-suicide from the very beginning and found issues with the investigation in the days following the deaths.
Mark Sheridan, one of the couple’s four sons, was made aware of the investigation by WNYC.
“I’m happy to hear that they’ve started to reach out to people,” he said. “I didn’t know that, but I certainly think it’s a good start.”
Around 200 people called for a state investigation in 2016, including three former governors, a previous justice of the state supreme court, and two former attorneys general.
According to WNYC, detectives thought that it was a murder-suicide because the main entrance to the bedroom was blocked, but there was a back door that a possible murderer could have used to leave the home.
The podcast investigation also discovered that the crime scene wasn’t properly looked into and evaluated.
Investigative lawyer Ed Stier was part of the group that established the Division of Criminal Justice within the attorney general’s office.
“The circumstances of their deaths were very, very unusual,” he said, according to Gothamist. “And for the Somerset County prosecutor’s office to walk into the crime scene and say, ‘oh, this is obviously a murder-suicide’ before any investigation took place was criminal negligence.”
“I’m very upset about it because it’s completely irresponsible,” Mr Stier said. “They couldn’t have done a worse job if they intended to mess up that investigation. They destroyed the crime scene and made it impossible for anybody to come in later on and do any kind of decent forensic work.”
John Sheridan worked for two governors, including as transportation commissioner for Republican Governor Tom Kean. Mr Sheridan was then a lobbyist at a New Jersey law firm and later served as the Cooper University Hospital CEO in Camden.
The sons of the couple have said that they requested help from the AG’s office on at least three occasions. The last request came after oldest son Mark Sheridan found documents that had been on his parents’ dining table which included printed email discussions and handwritten accounts of phone exchanges as well as meetings concerning a real estate deal on the waterfront in Camden.
“My father was involved in a very high-dollar real estate transaction that was going to make lots of money for lots of people,” Mark Sheridan said, according to Gothamist. “I just think that, in that circumstance, it’s something that should be investigated and looked into.”