State v. Freeman

• Decision Date: 17 February 1988
• Citation: 538 A.2d 371,223 N.J.Super. 92
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Edward F. FREEMAN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 92

223 N.J.Super. 92

538 A.2d 371

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Edward F. FREEMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

Superior Court of New Jersey,

Appellate Division.

Argued Dec. 8, 1987.

Decided Feb. 17, 1988.

John J. Haggerty, III, for defendant-appellant (Gold and Haggerty, attorneys; Robert Francis Gold, of counsel and on the brief).

Carol M. Henderson, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff-respondent (W. Cary Edwards, Atty. Gen., attorney; Carol M. Henderson, of counsel and on the brief).

Before Judges MICHELS, SHEBELL and GAYNOR.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

MICHELS, P.J.A.D.

Following a lengthy jury trial, defendant Edward Freeman was convicted of murdering his wife, Sandra Varga Freeman (Sandy), by cyanide poisoning, a crime of the first degree, in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3. Defendant's motions for a new trial or, alternatively, a judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict and for a post-trial examination of the jurors were denied. Defendant thereupon was committed to the custody of the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections for a term of life imprisonment with a 30-year period of parole ineligibility. In addition, defendant was assessed a penalty of $1,000, payable to the Violent Crimes Compensation Board. He appeals.

According to the State's proofs, defendant worked in the post office where he was regularly employed as a mailman. His wife, Sandy, stayed at home with their three children. Although the couple had their share of domestic arguments, few people were aware that their marriage had greatly deteriorated. Prior to her death, Sandy complained that defendant worked too much, leaving her sitting home alone at night. In late 1983, defendant began staying out late two to three nights a week, claiming he was helping a man named George fix up a garage in Sayreville. In reality, defendant was having an extramarital affair with fellow postal employee Linda Amiano (Ms. Amiano), which began in June 1983 and continued up until the time of defendant's arrest. During the last 7-8 months of their marriage, the couple did not sleep together and Sandy began to suspect that defendant might be having an affair.

On Memorial Day, May 28, 1984, Sandy got up at approximately 9:30 a.m. and went to the bakery where she purchased bread and donuts. After breakfast, defendant's father, August "Gus" Freeman and mother, as well as defendant's brother Joe Freeman, stopped over for approximately one half hour as they were returning from the shore. Around noon time, defendant took his family to buy a car stereo, returning home at approximately 4:00 p.m. for dinner which Sandy had prepared. At approximately 6:00 p.m. the family went to visit some friends living in nearby Avenel, Andrew and Patricia Contala (Contalas). Since they had just eaten, the Freemans declined the Contalas' invitation to join them for dinner but remained and socialized for one to two hours. During the visit Sandy had a cup of coffee.

After leaving the Contalas, the Freemans stopped at a Carvel Store where Sandy purchased some ice cream. When they arrived home, Sandy bathed the children and put them to bed. She then ate an ice cream sundae and the last cinnamon twist donut left from that morning's purchase. After consuming the ice cream and the donut, Sandy sat down in the T.V. room for several minutes before informing defendant that she was not feeling well. At this point, Sandy got up and climbed the stairs to the upper floor bathroom.

Several minutes later defendant followed Sandy up the stairs and heard a thud from the bathroom. After observing that Sandy had vomited and was lying unconscious next to the toilet, defendant telephoned his father (Gus) and told him to "come quick." Approximately five minutes later Gus Freeman arrived at his son's house. After Gus, an 18-year veteran of the Carteret First Aid Squad was unable to revive Sandy, he told defendant to call an ambulance. Gus knew that Sandy had been taking medication for high blood pressure and, therefore, concluded that she had suffered a stroke.

Officer Edward DeFelice (DeFelice) was assigned to dispatch duty at Carteret Police Headquarters (headquarters) at 10:30 p.m. on the night of May 28, 1984, when he received a call from defendant requesting an ambulance. Officer DeFelice dispatched Officer Barry Auker (Auker) to the Freeman residence and then alerted the local first aid squad and the Medic 10 paramedic unit at Rahway Hospital. Upon arriving at defendant's home, Officer Auker checked Sandy's vital signs and observed that she was breathing shallowly but had a somewhat strong pulse. Shortly thereafter, the first aid squad arrived and Auker assisted them in transporting the victim from the bathroom into the hall. By the time the Medic 10 unit arrived from Rahway Hospital, Sandy's pulse had stopped and efforts to revive her through CPR were ineffective.

The Medic 10 personnel set up an esophageal airway to pump Sandy's stomach. Vomiting was eventually induced and the paramedics cleaned up the area with several towels taken from defendant's bathroom. After attempting to resuscitate the victim for about an hour at home, the team placed Sandy in an ambulance at approximately 11:30 p.m. and continued to administer CPR. Defendant accompanied Sandy in the ambulance back to Rahway Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 11:41 p.m. on arrival at the Rahway Hospital Emergency Room.

In light of the rather natural, unsuspicious circumstances initially surrounding the victim's death, Officer Auker did not have photographs taken of the house or collect the towels used by the paramedics. Nevertheless, Officer Auker did complete a report of the incident, which was reviewed the next morning, May 29, 1984, by Detective Ronald Bennett (Bennett). Detective Bennett was prompted by this report to go to the autopsy conducted by the Medical Examiner, Dr. Marvin Shuster (Shuster), in the Perth Amboy Hospital Morgue later that morning.

During the course of the post-mortem examination, Dr. Shuster became convinced that the victim had not suffered a stroke or heart attack, but had in fact died from asphyxiation due to acute toxicity caused by cyanide. After detecting the odor of bitter almonds characteristically associated with cyanide, Dr. Shuster advised Detective Bennett of the potential public health hazard and asked him to secure any specimens at the scene of the death that might contain the poison. Dr. Shuster communicated his concern that foul play was a distinct possibility to Detective Bennett.

Detective Bennett thereafter dispatched Sergeant Michael Materazzo (Materazzo) and Detective Robert Talalai (Talalai) to the Freeman residence to collect any food or medication which Sandy might have ingested before she died. Upon their arrival, both defendant and Gus were advised that there was a possibility that Sandy had been poisoned, although the word cyanide was not mentioned, and defendant was asked to retrieve any food which she might have consumed. Defendant produced a paper bag containing donut remains, two Carvel ice cream containers, various medications, and a number of full garbage bags found outside of the house. Although defendant advised the officers that there was a rat problem in the neighborhood particularly in his backyard, to which the Board of Health was attending, he repeatedly denied that he had personally used any type of rat poison, weed killer or insecticide and that no such products were on the premises.

After meeting with Detective Ralph Spector (Spector) of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office later that morning, Detective Bennett telephoned defendant and asked him to come into headquarters to provide additional details regarding his wife's death. Defendant arrived at about 1:00 p.m., recounted the events of May 28, 1984 and left 25 minutes later. At this point, neither Detective Bennett nor Spector suspected that defendant was involved in his wife's death. That night, Detective Bennett received a toxicological report from Dr. Reng-Lang Lin (Lin) of the New Jersey State Medical Examiner's Office in Newark. This report revealed that samples taken from the victim's body had ten times the minimum lethal dose of cyanide. Dr. Lin found the cause of Sandy's death to be an acute cyanide overdose. Thereafter, Detectives Bennett and Spector met at headquarters at approximately 7:30 p.m. and made arrangements to visit the bakery and the Carvel and to interrogate the owners and any employees who had been working on Memorial Day. The detectives also visited defendant's home and requested that he return to the station to give a more detailed formal statement later that evening.

When defendant arrived at headquarters on the evening of May 29, 1984, the interview was conducted before Detectives Bennett and Spector and a police stenographer. Although defendant became visibly agitated and annoyed when told that he would be required to swear to the truth of the statement, he eventually calmed down and assented. In addition to the previous information defendant had provided, he now indicated, among other things, that Sandy had drunk "a glass of milk or glass of water or glass of something," just prior to becoming ill.

As a precautionary measure, the bakery and Carvel were closed by the Board of Health until the source of cyanide could be positively identified. Initially, Detective Bennett believed he had located the source when it was revealed that Sandy had been cleaning their swimming pool the day before her death and that a particular pool chemical, No Clo, which defendant had purchased on that day, contained cyanoric acid. This theory, however, was disproved when the No Clo container and its contents tested negative for the presence of sodium cyanide.

On May 31, 1984, the investigation took a decisive turn. Ray Baumgartner, the owner of a local hardware store, appeared at headquarters with Ted Tarnowski (Tarnowski), an employee,...