A man from New Jersey gets 15 years in prison for savagely destroying the body of a woman who died in his apartment.
The man was given 15 years in prison on Thursday for putting the body of a Paterson woman who was stabbed to death in his apartment in 2022 into the trunk of her car without honouring her.
Judge Justine A. Niccollai in Passaic County Superior Court gave Justin Fisher the highest sentences of 10 years for destroying human remains and 5 years for making it harder to catch someone. The sentences will run consecutively. The judge said Fisher wanted to get rid of the woman’s body and hide what had happened.
“Perhaps he didn’t kill her.” “That’s not up to me,” the judge said. “Being safe was the first thing Fisher thought about.” It was not at all decent of him to treat her body that way.
Investigators first said that Fisher, 32, of Totowa, killed Stephanie DeJesus, 38, a single mother, in his apartment on February 23, 2022. But as Fisher was about to go on trial in February, the murder charge was dropped because a judge threw out a lot of the blood evidence that had been found in his flat on Gordon Avenue.
Instead of putting Fisher on trial, the lawyers made him a deal. In April, he admitted to desecrating human remains and making it harder for police to find him.
DeJesus and Fisher were friends, according to the police. They said that a security camera caught her at a local pharmacy not long before she died, and she looked upset. Investigators said Fisher sent her a text message. He then beat her to death in his flat.
They said that Fisher’s fiancée Joelle Martucci was the first person to arrive at the flat after DeJesus died. Authorities say she and Fisher’s parents, Clo Fisher and Ali Gibson, helped him clean up the crime scene and get rid of DeJesus’ body. They put it in a box, took it to DeJesus’ car, and put it in the trunk.
After that, Gibson and Fisher drove the car to James Street in Paterson and left it there. Before long, DeJesus’s family and friends started looking for her. On February 25, 2022, they found her car with blood running out of the trunk.
Fisher didn’t say anything at his sentence on Thursday, but his lawyer, Alissa Hascup, said that he didn’t kill DeJesus. He said that the night of the murder, he took the body out of the flat and cleaned up the crime scene with the help of his mother, father, and fiancée.
Hascup read a letter in which he said he was sorry for “disrespecting” DeJesus.
She wrote, “Me and my family mourn her loss. I am deeply sorry.”
According to Hascup, another guy was in the flat that night and hit DeJesus with a hammer. He then left Fisher to clean up the crime scene and get rid of the body. She didn’t say his name; she just said he was DeJesus’ boyfriend.
“Everyone in this courtroom today can agree that this case is sad,” Hascup said. “But the saddest thing about this case is that the killer is not being caught.”
In the morning after Fisher pleaded guilty, Hascup said, the man put up a link on Instagram with a mysterious message. The post said, “You have just signed your death certificate.” Hascup said the boyfriend was a very likely suspect, but the cops never talked to him.
She said Fisher threw away the body to keep himself safe. She said, “He takes responsibility for his part in this.”
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Friends and family of DeJesus wanted a trial and told the judge to give Fisher the harshest punishment possible. Despite getting what they came for, they were still unhappy when they left on Thursday.
Jen Rodriguez, a friend of the victim, said, “You treated her like an animal.” “But to us, she wasn’t an animal.” The woman’s aunt, Linda Cordero, turned to Fisher and questioned him.
Fisher was going to be put on trial in February, but the defence questioned how blood samples were taken at the crime scene and the skill of the FBI agent who did the work.
While giving the sentence, Hascup said, “They took more than 100 blood samples at the crime scene and did not test a single one.”
In the end, the judge wouldn’t let the FBI agent’s evidence stand, which destroyed the prosecution’s murder case. Instead of putting Fisher on trial, Senior Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Barrera made a deal with him to plead guilty to lesser crimes.
During the sentencing, Barrera admitted that the prosecutors messed up the murder case but asked the judge to give the lesser charged people the maximum term possible.
“There was never a time when we thought he had nothing to do with it,” Barrera said. “We have always said that Justin Fisher assisted in the killing of Stephanie DeJesus.”
When asked after the sentence if DeJesus’ killer was still on the loose, Barrera wouldn’t say anything.
Fisher’s term will be shorter because he had to wait for his trial for more than two years. Most of the time, prisoners can get out of jail after spending one-third of their sentence. In Fisher’s case, that means five years. Lawyers said that means he will probably be able to get freedom in three years.
Gibson admitted to destroying human remains and is now in jail for five years.
Fisher’s mother, Clo Fisher, got probation for hindering apprehension and was present at Thursday’s sentencing but did not speak.
Martucci, Fisher’s fiancé, took a plea deal and was also on probation. Both she and Clo Fisher agreed to give evidence in the murder case.
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