Posted on 03/05/2005 8:24:14 AM PST by Valin
March 5, 2005 -- The youngest member of the massacred Jersey City Coptic clan was butchered after recognizing a neighbor as one of the men who invaded her home. The sighting, which came as the girl made a desperate escape bid, sparked the slaughter of her entire family.
Monica Armanious, 9, bravely struggled out of the duct-tape bonds that the two thieves wrapped around her wrists and eyes in the Jan. 14 robbery.
But before she could make it to freedom, she saw accused attacker Edward McDonald, a 25-year-old father of two who rented the family's upstairs apartment, law-enforcement sources said.
He and his alleged accomplice, Hamilton Sanchez — a 31-year-old convicted drug importer — decided that little Monica, dad Hossam, 47, mom Amal Garas, 37, and sister Sylvia, 15, all had to be eliminated, prosecutors said.
Then, in a stunning act of callousness, McDonald went back to his upstairs apartment and spent the next three days living there with his own child and his girlfriend while his alleged victims' bodies slowly rotted in the home below.
(snip)
The attackers left behind a crime scene that Jersey City law officers called one of the most gruesome and disturbing they had ever seen.
Suspicion initially fell on Muslim extremists, because Hossam was an advocate for Coptic Christian rights in his native Egypt — and had made pro-Christian Internet postings that angered some Muslims and elicited some online threats.
The suspicion led to tension between Jersey City's Coptic and Muslim communities and prompted the FBI to get involved. The FBI reportedly visited Egypt as part of the probe.
But DeFazio said the crime had no religious overtones.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Not exactly mutually exclusive groups you know.
Not exactly mutually exclusive groups you know.
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