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Posted on 03/05/2005 9:40:32 PM PST by jake777
Robbery, not religion, motive in Jersey City family slaying
By WAYNE PARRY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Robbery, not religion, was the motive behind the savage slaying of a family of four in January, prosecutors said Friday.
Two paroled drug dealers who were deeply in debt were charged with four counts of murder and held on $10 million bail in the Jan. 11 killing of the Armanious family, Coptic Christians from Egypt who emigrated to the United States in 1997.
Friends of the family had speculated that Hossam Armanious might have angered Muslims with postings he made in an Internet chat room under the user name "I Love Jesus." That led to widespread tension between Christians and Muslims here and throughout New Jersey.
"I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: The motive for these murders was robbery. This was a crime based on greed, the desperate need of money," Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.
Edward McDonald, 25, who rented a second-floor apartment above the Armanious family, and an acquaintance, Hamilton Sanchez, 30, pleaded not guilty. Dressed in a gray fleece top and blue jeans, his hands cuffed behind his back, Sanchez began sobbing as he stood before a judge.
"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, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and black pants, stared at the floor during the hearing.
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.
Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said the killings took place in the course of a robbery by the two men, who owed a large sum of money to a person whom DeFazio would not identify.
Police went to the Armanious home after relatives were unable to contact the family for several days. All four victims were found bound and gagged with puncture wounds to their heads and necks.
DeFazio said that during the robbery Monica Armanious had managed to loosen the bonds with which she was bound and gagged and recognized McDonald as the upstairs tenant. McDonald killed her out of fear of being identified and Sanchez killed the other three people, DeFazio said.
McDonald was taken into custody Thursday and charged later that night. Sanchez was arrested Thursday night and charged Friday. Both are to be held in protective custody.
Developments in the slayings had intensified in recent days as authorities revealed that about $3,000 had been withdrawn from Armanious' bank account using his ATM card in the days after the slayings.
DeFazio gave the following account of the killings: On the evening of Jan. 11, McDonald waited on the front porch of the two-story house for Sanchez to arrive. When he got there at about 7:30, McDonald knocked on the door and Garas opened it. Wearing a mask to hide his face, McDonald pushed his way into the ground-floor apartment, where he and Sanchez subdued the mother and her two girls, tying them up and covering their mouths with tape.
They remained bound that way for more than two hours until Hossam Armanious returned home between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. from his job with the banquet department of the Westin Princeton Hotel. As he entered the house, Monica managed to loosen the rope that bound her hands, and removed the tape from her mouth.
She recognized McDonald as the upstairs tenant of about two months, and he killed her, fearing she would be able to identify him to police, DeFazio said.
"From there, tragically, the situation spiraled out of control," he said. Sanchez then killed the father, mother and older sister by stabbing each repeatedly in the head, neck and body, the prosecutor said.
McDonald, who paid $975 a month to rent the upstairs apartment from Armanious, was questioned the day the bodies were found, but was not charged. He and Sanchez discussed robbing the family well in advance, thinking they had access to a large sum of money, DeFazio said.
McDonald was on parole following a conviction for possession of more than 500 grams of cocaine with intent to distribute, Assistant Prosecutor Patrick Rivoli said in court. Sanchez was on parole for a 1995 conviction on charges of conspiring to import "significant amounts" of heroin and cocaine into the country, Rivoli said.
The arrests were welcomed by Christian and Muslim groups who said they were deeply hurt by the tension the killings — and speculation about the motive behind them — had caused.
"Everybody is relieved that there is no religious implication behind it," said Maged Riad, a spokesman for the worldwide head of the Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda. "Just for money, four lives were wasted. It's sad to think that the human race has devolved to this point."
Originally published on March 4, 2005
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