Crushing blows from bat killed Brick man, son is on trial for homicide
Jeray Melton describes the crushing blows that killed a Brick man throughout the trial of the victims son.
TOMS RIVER – On Sept. 7, 2019, Mark R. Austin instructed his son he was going to Bayonne to purchase medication from somebody named ”Shadow.”
Then, the daddy requested the son to go choose up a stranger on the facet of the street at routes 70 and 72 in Stafford Township and produce him again to their Brick dwelling to attend for the elder Austin to come back dwelling.
Later that night time, the youthful Austin drove to Philadelphia for cheesesteaks, despatched a textual content message to his father to ask if he needed one, after which received one for him anyway when he did not reply.
That is what the son, Mark J. Austin, instructed detectives hours after his father was found bludgeoned to demise that night time of their dwelling on Acorn Drive.
The weird story prompted detectives to test it out and study it did not comport with different proof.
Now, the youthful Austin, 34, is on trial earlier than Superior Courtroom Choose Man P. Ryan, charged with homicide. He’s accused of hiring his former cellmate to kill his 55-year-old father.
Sgt. John Murphy, the lead detective on the case for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Workplace, was on the witness stand on Sept. 15 when prosecutors performed a video of him and Brick Detective Mark Byrne questioning the youthful Austin within the early morning of Sept. 8, 2019, simply hours after the defendant stated he realized of his father’s homicide.
Austin was not a suspect at the moment. Murphy testified the defendant was certainly one of a number of individuals with a relationship to the sufferer who was questioned by police that day.
Murphy stated he grew to become concerned within the investigation after responding to the sufferer’s dwelling about midnight on Sept. 8, 2019.
Inside the house, the sufferer was seated on a sofa, his face and arms lined with blankets. Beneath the blankets, there have been “a number of indicators of blunt trauma” on the sufferer’s head and face, he testified.
There was blood spatter on the lounge partitions and ceiling, a pool of blood close to the sufferer and a baseball bat with crimson stains leaning towards a cupboard, Murphy testified.
Austin’s former cellmate on the Backyard State Youth Correctional Facility, Jeray Melton, testified final week that Austin provided to pay him $50,000 to kill his father, and that he repeatedly beat the sufferer with a baseball bat on the Austin household dwelling after which lined him with blankets.
Melton, 34, of Salem, testified he by no means acquired the $50,000. He stated Austin gave him 1 / 4 pound of marijuana and a few money he took out of an automatic teller machine.
Austin, being questioned within the aftermath of the homicide, was emotional on the onset of the interview, crying when he instructed the detectives his brother died of a drug overdose a number of years earlier. All he had left now was his son and his mom, he instructed them.
He stated his father had a heroin behavior and was going to Bayonne that day to get medication from somebody named “Shadow,” whom he had by no means seen.
Earlier than his father left, he requested him to select up somebody at routes 72 and 70 in Stafford Township. The person was a stranger to him, Austin instructed the detectives. His father instructed him the person could be standing on the facet of the street at a selected mile marker, Austin instructed the detectives.
The detectives requested him for a mile marker.
“It was like 20-something,” Austin responded.
Austin described his passenger as a black, skinny man, round 5 foot 10 or 5 foot 11, with quick hair and a brief beard, carrying a crimson baseball cap, a lightweight coloured shirt and denims.
Murphy, questioning Austin, referred to the passenger as “the thriller man” and requested what he did with him after going again to his home.
Austin stated his father instructed him to go away him there in his father’s room. He instructed detectives he left and returned later to seek out the stranger and his father in a again room. His father then requested him to take the stranger again to the place he picked him up.
Austin stated he obliged after which drove to Philadelphia for cheesesteaks.
“I texted my Dad earlier than I received to the cheesesteak place round 11 p.m.,” Austin instructed the detectives, including that his father did not reply the textual content message.
“I received two cheesesteaks anyway, figuring if he is dwelling, he is likely to be asleep,” Austin instructed them.
“The cheesesteaks have been in his automobile when a neighbor referred to as him to inform him his father was lifeless,” Austin instructed the detectives.
