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Lakewood, NJ +Suspect In Abduction Of Girl Arrested+ Ocean County prosecutors and Lakewood Police Department have arrested a perp responsible for the abduction and assault of a 19-year-old Chasidic girl from Trim Gym at Route 9 near the Shop Rite supermarket parking lot in Lakewood NJ late at night on May 7th, 2006, and was released behind the building the next morning.
Lakewood PD will give a press conference with more details on the case in Toms River Wednesday.
U/D: 11:44
Lakewood resident Brandon J. Fritz has been arrested in connection with the abduction and assault of the young Orthodox Jewish woman in Lakewood, authorities said.
Fritz, 21, was arrested yesterday in Old Bridge in a separate case in which he faces charges of burglary, robbery, and attempted assault.
He is being held in lieu of $1 million bail in the Ocean County case.
Where did the info spelling out his address come from? All I see is Delaware Trail; how do we know it is 15 Delaware trail?
im just happy that this animal was finally caught!
OLD BRIDGE — When the 48-year-old Reo Street woman walked into her home Tuesday morning, she knew something was seriously wrong.
A roll of duct tape stood on her dining room table on the first floor of her two-story home in the Sayre Woods South section. And someone’s T-shirt lay on the dining room floor. Fearing a burglary, she checked money she had tucked away and found it was missing.
She went upstairs to check her jewelry.
And as she opened the dresser in her bedroom, a young man grabbed her, she reported.
The alleged attack Tuesday morning was chilling enough. But even more disturbing, he was wearing the Old Bridge woman’s underwear over his head and had on her pajamas, said the woman, a Polish immigrant whom authorities identified only as Helena.
The attack happened about 10 a.m. and lasted for what seemed like five to 10 minutes, she said.
“He threw me on the bed and I tried to get out, but I fell on the floor,” she said with a heavy accent. She screamed, grabbed his hair and ripped the underwear off his head.
The attack might have continued, but he was spooked by an alarm clock that suddenly started ringing, said the woman’s 28-year-old son, who gave only his first name, Jerry. He translated for his mother when she spoke in Polish outside her home Wednesday afternoon.
Helena told her assailant that it was her son on the phone and that he had already called 911. Police later said that the victim called her son before going upstairs.
That’s when the assailant ran out of the house. And that’s when she recognized him, she said. She did not get a look at the man’s face because he was holding her from behind. But she noticed his limp as he fled, she said.
The suspect, Brandon J. Fritz, a sprinkler installer who lives in Lakewood, had been working at her well-maintained home on Monday, authorities said.
On his way out the door after the thwarted attack, Fritz grabbed his T-shirt from the floor. On it was the name of his company, said the victim’s son.
A speedy arrest
Those details led police quickly to Fritz, said Detective Scott Crocco of the Old Bridge Police Department.
“Within a few hours, he was in here,” Crocco said.
Police arrested Fritz at the offices of the company he worked for, Environmental Designers Irrigation of Howell, First Deputy Assistant Prosecutor Julia McClure said.
A pickup truck he used to flee Reo Street was not a company vehicle, police said.
Investigators believe Fritz entered the Reo Street home through a back door, but there were no signs of forced entry, Old Bridge Lt. Robert Weiss said.
McClure said Fritz took more than $500 cash from the home.
After Fritz was questioned in Old Bridge, someone in the detective bureau pulled a composite sketch off a bulletin board of a man wanted in the May 7 abduction and sexual assault of a woman in Lakewood.
The similarities to Fritz “gave us the chills,” Crocco said.
Fritz was soon charged with sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping in the Lakewood attack. It involved a 20-year-old woman who was abducted as she left a Route 9 workout center. She was bound with duct tape.
He is charged with burglary, robbery, theft and attempted aggravated sexual assault in the Old Bridge case, McClure said.
Investigators are now trying to link him to at least a half dozen other sexual assaults in New Jersey, authorities said.
Neighbors stunned
Neighbors of the Old Bridge victim yesterday were still coming to grips with the violent attack that occurred nearby.
“He must have had his plans laid out,” said Al Miller, who lives across the street. “It’s scary.”
Anita Rapp, 76, said she noticed the pickup truck parked near the home for about an hour, but didn’t think it signaled a burglary.
“When they break in, they go in and out,” the longtime neighborhood resident said, recalling only one previous burglary.
No arraignment had been scheduled for Fritz in Middlesex County. He was being held Wednesday night at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick in lieu of $450,000 bail on the Old Bridge charges and $1 million cash bail on the Lakewood charges.
Wednesday, police in Old Bridge called Helena a heroine.
“She wouldn’t go silently and that made all the difference in the world,” Weiss said.
The Lakewood Vaad, a council of Lakewood rabbis, offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the assailant in the May 7 attack.
It was unknown Wednesday whether the Reo Street woman was a candidate for the reward money.
Lakewood vaad refusing to pay the 50k reward big talk on radio
I think anti investors was right. The investors in this town do not care what kind of trash they rent their houses to as long as the house is not next to their OWN
The person who is think that can flee from a case could never runaway from inside of person mind until the case arrive find him
this is soo despicable. how could anti-investors talk again people in the community like this I cant believe this site is allowing itself to become a forum for ill people.
15 Delaware Trail, Lakewood Twp., NJ
Chaim Sochet
1425 14th Street
Lakewood, NJ 08701
Block: 2.04 Lot: 22
Width: 100 X Depth: 230 Land: 214,700.00 Build: 102,600.00 Total $317,300.00
Sold: $325,000.00 on 07/30/2004 BOOK: 12212 PAGE: 31 Ocean County Deed Lookup
$265,000.00 – 05/30/2003 $0.00 – **/**/**** $0.00 – **/**/****
This is the perps address. Who owns this property?
15 Delaware Trl
Lakewood, NJ 08701-1123
Lawn Worker Charged In Sexual Assault
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — A 21-year-old man has been charged in the May 7 abduction and sexual assault of an Orthodox Jewish woman after being arrested in another attack, authorities said Wednesday.
Brandon Fritz, of Lakewood, was being held on $1 million bail after being charged in both attacks, Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher said.
Fritz, who works for a lawn sprinkler company, was caught Tuesday after returning to an Old Bridge Township home where he had been working a day earlier and trying to steal a television, according to Kelaher.
He was interrupted when the owner of the home, a 48-year-old woman, walked in on him, according to Kelaher.
Fritz attempted to sexually assault the woman before something interrupted him and he fled, but police arrested him later after tracking him through the sprinkler company, said Kelaher.
He had duct tape with him at the time of his arrest, and that — combined with his resemblance to the suspect in a police sketch stemming from the first attack and the circumstances of the Tuesday attack — prompted Old Bridge authorities to contact Ocean County authorities.
“If she hadn’t come home, he probably would have left,” said Kelaher. “I guess it was a target of opportunity.”
Fritz, who is single, is charged with sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping in the first attack, which involved a 20-year-old woman who was abducted as she left a health club in Lakewood.
He is charged with burglary, aggravated robbery and attempted sexual assault in the Old Bridge case, Kelaher said.
There is no indication that Fritz picked either victim based on their religious persuasion. Orthodox Jewish leaders in Lakewood had feared that the first attack may have been motivated by the woman’s religion.
The Lakewood Vaad, a council of Lakewood rabbis, offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the perpetrator of the May 7 attack, in which the victim was taken to a wooded area and sexually assaulted for five hours before being returned to the spot where she was abducted and left, with duct tape around her face.
“This crime had a very large impact on the quality of life in our town,” said Lakewood Mayor Meir Lichtenstein.
Prosecutors released a mug shot of the suspect in hopes that publicity would lead other potential victims of the man to come forward. Kelaher said authorities suspect there may have been other attacks but aren’t sure.
where did he live in Lakewood?
It was the OldBridge police not the Lakewood olice.
can you post a picture of the guy??
AND THEY ARE OVER-STAFFED
KUDOS TO THE POLICE? HE WAS ARESTED IN OLD BRIDGE. LAKEWOOD POLICE ARE INCOMPETENT FOOLS.
is there a link or picture of the guy
Kudos to the police dept. First everyone criticized them, but, now you see, they’ve done their job.
I heard he is an ugefurener yid rachmuna litzlan!
lock him up and throw away the key; then do the same to those who prey on our young tinoykos shel bays rabun
he was caught trying to do the same thing in a different nj town. he was positively identified by the girl herself and he admitted it too
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOMS RIVER — Ocean County authorities have made an arrest in the abduction and sexual assault of an Orthodox Jewish woman in Lakewood.
The woman was snatched from a parking lot outside her health club in May and was released behind the building the next morning.
Prosecutors plan to announce details of the arrest during a news conference in Toms River today.
The press confrence in lakewood about the rapist will be at 1100 am at the lakewood police station
I’m in shock I was sure they will never solve this case…
They ought to hang this menuval by his toes.
who what when where?
any more info forthcoming tonite?
Any info as to where he was found?
Halevai that this is the right person!
B”H i hope it’s the man thay are looking for so we could all sleep in peace 1 more lowlife of the street
Not that i’m doubting it, but i jsut want to know what the source of this report is?