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Authorities have made a major break in the case of the slain Jersey City family, with two suspects scheduled to be arraigned today. Although the Hudson County prosecutor's office isn't releasing the names of the two people or saying what the charges are, local press reports one of them is a former tenant of the building where the Coptic Christian family lived and was found murdered Jan. 14. As WorldNetDaily reported, Hossam Armanious, was found in his home with his wife and two daughters -- Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8 -- bound and gagged with their throats slashed.

March 4, 2005 -- An ex-con and former upstairs neighbor reportedly was being grilled last night in the savage stabbing deaths of a Jersey City family of four

Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said yesterday that it appears unlikely investigators will be able to decipher the license plate of the car used by a man who made ATM withdrawals from the account of a slain Jersey City Heights family. An image caught on a security camera at a Central Avenue drive-through ATM showing the man using the family's bank card is not clear enough to read the plate, even after being digitally enhanced, DeFazio said. DeFazio said the angle the video was taken from will likely make it impossible to read the car's plate number, but that identifying...

Security video from a Central Avenue bank's drive-through ATM machine has captured images of the car used by a man to steal from the account of the slain Jersey City family of four whose bodies were found bound and gagged in their Heights home in January, officials said.Hudson County Prosecutor Edward Defazio said investigators have been able to determine the make, model and year of the car and are having the images enhanced with the hope of being able to read the license plate number."We have ascertained, by surveillance, time and observation, that the vehicle used at the drive-in by...

Security video from a Central Avenue bank's drive-through ATM machine has captured images of the car used by a man to steal from the account of the slain Jersey City family of four whose bodies were found bound and gagged in their Heights home in January, officials said. Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said investigators have been able to determine the make, model and year of the car and are having the images enhanced with the hope of being able to read the license plate number. "We have ascertained, by surveillance, time and observation, that the vehicle was apparently used...

During the two-day period that a brutally slain Jersey City family of four lay dead in their bloody Oakland Avenue apartment, a man was already using their bank card to raid their accounts at nearby ATMs on Central Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard - and police have video of the withdrawals, officials said yesterday. "We don't know at this point where the person resides, but it could be someone from Jersey City," Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said. "The pattern of the ATM locations speaks for itself, and I don't think we need significant analysis of that." DeFazio said reviews of...

The ATM card of slain Jersey City Heights resident Hossam Armanious was used several times in the week after his death to withdraw thousands of dollars from his bank account, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward Defazio said yesterday.The withdrawls, made on several occasions from banks in the Jersey City Heights and in mid-town Manhattan, continued for up to a week after the bodies of Armanious, his wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia and Monica, were found inside their Oakland Avenue apartment on Jan. 14.

Coptic manuscripts unearthed in Pharaonic tomb in Egypt Published February 21, 2005 CAIRO -- Polish experts excavating in the southern city of Luxor have discovered three ancient Coptic manuscripts in a Pharaonic tomb, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Saturday. The find was the single most important Coptic discovery since 1945 when a pair of bedouins stumbled onto the Coptic codices in Nag Hammadi in Egypt's western desert, it said. The manuscripts date to the sixth century and were concealed in a Middle Kingdom (2000 to 1800 BC) tomb in Luxor, about 710 kilometers (440 miles) south of Cairo,...

In Al-Gurna where several excavation missions are probing for more Ancient Egyptian treasures under the sand, a team from the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology has stumbled on a major Coptic trove buried under the remains of a sixth-century monastery located in front of a Middle Kingdom tomb. Excavators unearthed two papyri books with Coptic text along with a set of parchments placed between two wooden labels as well as Coptic ostraca, pottery fragments and textiles. The head of the team, Tomaz Gorecki, said the books were well preserved except for the papyri papers which were exceptionally dry. The first...

On America's Most Wanted, spotlight tonight on: Hossam Armanious, his wife Amal and their daughters, Sylvia, 15 and Monica, 9 were found murdered in their Jersey City, New Jersey home. They had been tied up, gagged and stabbed to death. Police are trying to determine if this was a hate crime, as the family were devout Coptic Christians. Police believe that more than one person may have been involved in the four homicides.

Coptic trove Luxor's west bank was the site of a significant find, reports Nevine El-Aref In Al-Gurna where several excavation missions are probing for more Ancient Egyptian treasures under the sand, a team from the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology has stumbled on a major Coptic trove buried under the remains of a sixth-century monastery located in front of a Middle Kingdom tomb. Excavators unearthed two papyri books with Coptic text along with a set of parchments placed between two wooden labels as well as Coptic ostraca, pottery fragments and textiles. The head of the team, Tomaz Gorecki, said the...

WASHINGTON -- Relatives of a slain New Jersey family of four were slated to meet with FBI officials and federal lawmakers Tuesday and planned to speak for the first time about the crimes.Hossam Armanious, 47, his 37-year-old wife Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, all had puncture wounds to their throats. Their bodies were found bound and gagged in separate rooms of their Jersey City home on Jan. 14, a day before the family planned to throw Sylvia a Sweet 16 party. The family, Coptic Christians, came to the United States in 1997 from their native...

Bishop leads Coptics amid slay probe Wednesday, February 09, 2005 BY JEFF DIAMANT Star-Ledger Staff After the bishop's weekly class on Coptic Christian doctrine was over, the children in the audience ran up to greet him and get the candy he was doling out. With a wide smile emerging through his beard, Bishop David, the 37-year-old head of the Coptic church, sat comfortably in a small chair at St. Mark's Church in Cedar Grove as he talked to the kids and handed out the chocolates. Advertisement "We love the children very much, and we believe we have to look after...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in New Jersey: An Islamic Murder of Coptic Christians?.Anyone following the investigation into the mid-January slaughter of the Armanious family (husband, wife, two young daughters), Copts living in Jersey City, N.J., knows who the presumptive suspects are: Islamists furious at a Christian Egyptian immigrant who dares engage in Internet polemics against Islam and who attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity.The authorities, however, have blinded themselves to the extensive circumstantial evidence, insisting that "no facts at this point" substantiate a religious motive for the murders.Somehow, the prosecutor missed that all four members of this...

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- The FBI is trying to determine whether an Islamic Web site that tracked users of an online chat room had anything to do with the killings of a Christian Egyptian family. The site, barsomyat.com, is no longer online. But before it was shut down by its Minnesota hosting company, it reportedly featured photos of Hossam Armanious and his wife, Amal Garas, referring to him as a "filthy dog" and "his filthy wife," according to the New York Sun.

The New Jersey man brutally murdered with his family was just one of a number of Christians systematically tracked by a radical Islamic website because they debate Muslims on the popular Internet chat service PalTalk.com. The password-protected Arabic website www.barsomyat.com, includes the kind of death threat received by Hossam Armanious, a Coptic Christian from Jersey City, N.J., who was found Jan. 14 with his wife and two daughters, bound and gagged with their throats slashed, the New York Sun reports. Two months before his murder, according to authorities, Armanious received a death threat from a Muslim PalTalk user: "You'd better...

Christians on PalTalk Chat Service Tracked by Radical Islamic Web Site By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Special to the Sun A radical Islamic Web site systematically tracks Christians on PalTalk.com, an Internet chat service on which a New Jersey man received a death threat two months before he and his family were murdered. The password protected Arabic Web site, at the address www.barsomyat.com, features pictures and information about Christians who have been particularly active in debating Muslims on PalTalk. One page from barsomyat.com features a group of photographs of a Syrian Christian, "Joseph," who now lives in Canada. Barsomyat.com's users have posted...

January 31, 2005 Christians on PalTalk Chat Service Tracked by Radical Islamic Web Site An explosive New York Sun article reprinted at the Counterterrorism blog. As you can see, I was consulted on this story, and I will be posting more about it momentarily: A radical Islamic Web site systematically tracks Christians on PalTalk.com, an Internet chat service on which a New Jersey man received a death threat two months before he and his family were murdered. The password protected Arabic Web site, at the address www.barsomyat.com, features pictures and information about Christians who have been particularly active in debating...

COPTIC KILLINGS Christians stalked on Islamic website Murdered New Jersey man among several tracked by Muslims The New Jersey man brutally murdered with his family was just one of a number of Christians systematically tracked by a radical Islamic website because they debate Muslims on the popular Internet chat service PalTalk.com. The password-protected Arabic website www.barsomyat.com, includes the kind of death threat received by Hossam Armanious, a Coptic Christian from Jersey City, N.J., who was found Jan. 14 with his wife and two daughters, bound and gagged with their throats slashed, the New York Sun reports. Two months before his...

A close friend of Hossam Armanious and relatives of the family murdered in New Jersey have revealed the following: Shortly after the murders, members of the Egyptian consulate went to visit the family to encourage them to keep quiet. And many family members have obeyed, saying nothing to reporters or anyone else. However, two family members and another Copt viewed the bodies at the funeral home. One of these eyewitnesses said that he clearly saw that the family members had not suffered “stab wounds to the throat,” as the prosecutor’s report states, but rather the following: A. Both adults, Hossam...