Posted on 01/23/2005 8:00:09 PM PST by Coleus
Boasts tie suspect to killing in Plainfield S. Plainfield native held in'83 shooting
Domenico Anastario talked too much, authorities said . That was his mistake.
The Florida man's bent for boasting eventually ended in his arrest for a 21-year-old Plainfield killing, police said.
Anastario, 44, told a friend he got away with shooting a man to death on a dark Plainfield street in 1983. The friend, who turned out to be a police informant, relayed the tale to Edgewater, Fla., police detective David Gamell.
At first, Gamell was skeptical. "When you commit a murder, you don't tell anyone," Gamell said. "He was bragging about committing a murder in New Jersey."
Gamell contacted Plainfield police and the case began to unravel.
Marcus Jones, 22, was slain on a street corner in Plainfield on Nov. 27, 1983, after a drug deal turned violent, police said. Anastario had gone to Jones to buy drugs, but there was no delivery, police said.
Anastario was so angry he went to his father's house in South Plainfield for a rifle, returned to the corner of Clinton Avenue and South Second Street in Plainfield and shot Jones dead, police said.
A police investigation into the homicide produced few leads, and no arrests were made. The investigation languished until an investigator with the Union County Prosecutor's Office, Frank Pfeiffer, became interested in the cold case a year ago.
But it was the call from detective Gamell in Florida to investigators in Plainfield in November that led them to Anastario.
After learning that Anastario had relocated to Longwood, Fla., Plainfield detective John Furda asked for help from his Longwood counterparts.
On Dec. 17, Longwood police Lt. Troy Hickson found Domenico Anastario in an apartment he was renting in town.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
A drug dealer killed and a murderer caught.
Talk about your happy endings!
Plainfield really seems to be an axis.
I pray these investigations on NJ kick into high gear soon!
Not so very long ago, Plainfield was fondly referred to as a suburb of Wall Street. One of the most beautiful towns in Jersey. Jaw-dropping Victorian architecture. Now what you notice is the crime stats. Plainfield's numbers are exponentially higher than most other towns in the state, for most crimes. It's the drugs. Other towns have a drug problem, Plainfield has a drug plague. A lot of fine people---stubborn people, devoted people live there still, but it's been heading downhill for decades.
>>> Now what you notice is the crime stats.
I'm sorry. But my comments did not come from any stats. It came from my personal knowledge of 'interesting individuals' within Plainfield.
So you don't think I am ignoring you. I'm off to bed now.
Night
Really? It hasn't been a "suburb of Wall Street since the 1920s. I know people who lived there in the 1950s/60s and they told me that it was a mix of blue collar whites and blacks by then. The Wall Streeters decamped to Morris and Somerset County a long time ago.
Perhaps I should have written "Now what one notices is the crime stats." But that sounds a bit antiquated. And fwiw I have personally been on the bitter receiving end of some of those crime stats in Plainfield, along with several members of my family. We lived there for a time. A very unpleasant time.
What can I say Clemenza? I am older than dirt, and heard this (a lot) from the old-timers who grew up in old Plfd.
Not at all. I actually prefer it. :)
I just find it amazing when I see photos of my dad's hometown of Newark, which even had its own theatre district, despite being close to NYC. My dad's nabe is still OK, although the rest of Newark is awful (although not as bad as East Orange, Irvington, Elizabeth or Paterson).
What I remember of Newark in the fifties was the grandeur of the buildings---and the smell of the refineries we passed by, on the way. Some of the old movie houses, young folks today simply can't imagine. Like from another world.
Anastario ain't no Florida Boy, I know all of them, only a couple of dozen left. Don't blame this on Us.
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