Neighbor, other man charged in slaying of Jersey City family

PhillyBurbs ^

[Selkie]

By WAYNE PARRY The Associated Press

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - The upstairs neighbor of an Egyptian Christian family found slain in their home in January was charged Friday, along with another man, in the murders.

Edward McDonald, 25, who rented a second-floor apartment above Hossam Armanious and his family, pleaded not guilty to four counts of felony murder. Hamilton Sanchez, 30, faces the same charges and also pleaded not guilty.

Sanchez during a court hearing began crying as he stood before a judge, his hands cuffed behind his back.

"I didn't kill nobody. I didn't kill nobody, man. I didn't kill nobody, people," Sanchez said, as he was led from the courtroom. McDonald stared at the floor during the hearing.

Both men, who were on parole for different drug offenses, were ordered held on $10 million cash bail.

Authorities said Armanious, 47; his wife, Amal Garas, 37, and their children - Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8 - were slain three days before their bodies were found Jan. 14.

[Selkie]

Well I'm relieved that the killers have apparently been caught. May the Armanious family Rest in Peace and may their family find some consolation in their murderers being caught and brought to justice for the slayings.

PAX

[evets]

"I didn't kill nobody. I didn't kill nobody, man. I didn't kill nobody, people,"
I didn't kill anybody, Sanchez. sheesh.

[Selkie]

Ping

[King Prout]

I'm not believing this one.

[TomGuy]

So then what all that about the family being stalked by (Islamo) person or persons they encountered in while in an Internet chatroom?

I haven't kept up with this case, but robbery as motive that resulted in such an heinous crime doesn't seem to fit.

[maestro]

......Well I'm relieved that the 'killers' have apparently been caught.......

Yep.

[newgeezer]

Maybe he's jus' tellin' da m'f***in' troof.

[Modernman]

I haven't kept up with this case, but robbery as motive that resulted in such an heinous crime doesn't seem to fit.

You'd be surprised what junkie ex-cons are willing to do to get drug money.

[Selkie]

I just saw the killers on the local news.
Typical J.C. scary pondscum. Jersey City, particularly the Heights, is rife w/ thugs like that.
>>>>>


The Bergen County Record reports 25-year-old ex-convict Edward McDonald is one of the two people in custody. Investigators interrogated McDonald for much of the day yesterday and raided his apartment.
McDonald was released from federal prison in April 2004 and spent time in a halfway house before moving into the second-floor apartment of the Armanious' two-family home with his girlfriend, according to an unidentified cousin of McDonald cited by the paper. The couple was living there when the slayings occurred but moved out about a month ago.

"He didn't live there too long," the cousin said, according to The Record. The Armaniouses "asked them to move out. ... [Torres] told me she was surprised that she didn't hear anything during the murders."

[King Prout]

I am just not believing this one.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[The_Reader_David]

Sorry, but this smacks of a 'round up the usual suspects' cover-up by the authorities.

I have it from a Copt who attends our Eastern Orthodox (Rum, that is, for folks in the know about Christianity in the Middle East) mission when he doesn't make the 2.5 hour trek to the nearest Coptic church, that the Coptic community in NJ know who the killers are. Evidently the Armanious family were instrumental in the conversion of an Egyptian woman from Islam to Christianity, and shortly after the murders all of her still-Muslim relatives returned to Egypt.

The lack of forced entry was because the killers convinced the Armanious's that they were interested in a Bible study, and were welcomed into the home.

[Shermy]

But one of them was using the dead father's ATM card.

[jan in Colorado]

Thank you for the ping Selkie.

Interesting turn of events.

It will be interesting to get the "facts" of the case.

[bboop]

I don't buy it either.

[Tacis]

If it was a drug robbery, then there should have been lots of evidence left behind, fingerprints and the like. IIRC from the first reports, the killings seemed awfully meticulous for a couple of wild druggies.

OTOH, maybe, these are the two guys who did OJ's wife and Vince Foster.

[Toidylop]

really smell a rat here...

[Fred Nerks]

I want to believe it, I hope it's true. It would be a great relief to everyone to know that the murder of this family wasn't motivated by some evil cleric's fatwa against perceived enemies of islam.
However, and I guess you all knew this was coming, islam can't accuse anyone of bigotry as the result of speculation that the crime may have been 'religiously' motivated. Their numerous threats based upon the koranic requirement that all infidels should die or don't deserve to live, is what pointed the finger straight at them. Not us.
It's time for islam to do a little house-cleaning in the West and remove the clerics who preach 'death to the infidel' and stop telling their followers that everyone other than a muslim is a dirty kuffar.

[jpl]

This will be a most interesting trial. If these guys are really the scum who did it, then I'll have been wrong big-time, along with a lot of other people. If the bodies were really lying there three days before they were found though, it's possible that these dirtbags got in there after they were killed by someone else, and decided to take advantage and steal their ATM card and not report the murders to the police.

Admittedly, having the ATM card certainly looks bad for them though. It'll be interesting to see if there's any kind of real forensic evidence linking them to the murders.

[JimRed]

"They was dead when we got there; we just took their stuff!"