Three Men Arrested in Case of Burned Bodies
(1010 WINS)-Three men were charged with the murder of two people found inside a burned sport utility vehicle Friday.
At least one of the victims was alive when the vehicle was set ablaze in a school bus parking lot in a remote industrial area, the Hudson County prosecutor's office said.
The suspects, who were arrested on Sunday, are Tariq Maqbool, 25, of Old Bridge and Zaid Tariq, 20, and Paul Ried, 36, both of Sayreville, said Debra Simon, an assistant Hudson County prosecutor.
Maqpool and Tariq are natives of Pakistan, and bail was set for all three defendants at $5 million on Monday by state Superior Court Judge Francis Schultz. All three men are being held in the Hudson County Correctional Center on felony murder charges.
[snip]None of the men had listed phone numbers.
The bodies of the victims were burned beyond recognition in the 1 a.m. fire.
Even so, Simon said investigators are reasonably certain of the victims' identities, based on interviews with the vehicle owner's family in Pennsylvania. The family was located using the vehicle identification number on the Mitsubishi Montero.
Simon said the names of the victims, both men, are being withheld pending positive identification using dental records.
The victims ran a phone card business in Pennsylvania, and Ried and Maqbool run a similar business in Sayreville, Preferred Wireless. A recorded message at Preferred said the company's voice mail box was full and no message could be left.
Based on interviews with family members, Simon said the two victims had driven the Mitsubishi to Sayreville on Halloween to buy $300,000 worth of prepaid phone calling cards from two of their alleged assailants. Some of the money has been recovered, Simon said.
Simon said a dispute erupted at the Sayreville business between the two victims and the three defendants plus one other man who was not identified and was at large Monday. The case is still under investigation, and additional arrests are possible, Simon said.
A shot was fired during the dispute, although no one was believed to have been hit, Simon said.
The victims were bound and driven to Jersey City, where the Mitsubishi was set ablaze with them inside.
Simon said the case will be presented to a grand jury.
If only prepaid calling cards were legalized then this sort of crime would never have happened.