Story behind fatal shooting still emerging

Stabbing victim William Sword Jr. is on the mend.

By: David Campbell
   William Sword Jr., a prominent Princeton Township investment banker who suffered multiple knife wounds when attacked in his residence early Thursday by a 24-year-old Teaneck man, is on the mend and expected home from the hospital within days, said family spokesman Peter McDonough.
   "He’ll be home any day now," Mr. McDonough said Monday. "He’s recovering well." Mr. Sword and his wife, Martha, had no comment at this time, the family spokesman said.
   The 51-year-old banker was listed in good condition Monday, according to a spokeswoman for Capital Health System Fuld Campus, where he was airlifted after Jelani Manigault, a University of Maryland student, stabbed him multiple times with a kitchen knife.
   Mr. Manigault, who was staying overnight with his parents and girlfriend at Tenacre Foundation, the Christian Science training and retreat center on The Great Road, was fatally shot by police outside the Swords’ residence.
   Friends of Mr. Manigault described the young man as gentle, kind and humble, and said they didn’t recognize the violent person described by authorities.
   "It’s one thing to lose a friend, but it’s even harder to come to terms with the way he died, because it’s so unfitting of the person we all knew and loved," said Adrienne Augustus of High Point, N.C., who said she had known Mr. Manigault since the sixth grade and last saw him in September.
   "He was really loved by a lot of people," Ms. Augustus said.
   Tenacre President Cynthia Love said Monday that Mr. Manigault’s parents took him to The Medical Center at Princeton around 3 p.m. Wednesday for treatment related to anxiety.
   Mr. Manigault’s mother had called Tenacre saying the young man was anxious and had to be picked up from college, and that they planned to stay over at Tenacre on the way home to Teaneck, Ms. Love said.
   The family arrived around 8 p.m. Tuesday and had planned to meet with the foundation’s nursing department the following morning to discuss the possibility of the young man receiving Christian Science nursing care, which is based on prayer.
   But the meeting was canceled when Mr. Manigault opted for treatment at the hospital instead, the Tenacre president said.
   Medical Center spokeswoman Carol Norris said Mr. Manigault was evaluated in the emergency room and released at 9:18 p.m. Wednesday. Ms. Norris declined to provide further details about the visit.
   Authorities said that at around 1:30 a.m. Thursday Mr. Manigault left Tenacre in his parents’ car and crashed it across the street from the Swords’ residence on The Great Road West, where Mr. Sword lives with his wife and two of his three children.
   The young man went to the Swords’ residence and was invited in by Mr. Sword, who thought he was hurt, then attacked the banker in his kitchen with a 12-inch knife he found there.
   During a struggle with Mr. Sword and his visiting brother-in-law, Robert Sullivan of Long Island, N.Y., Mr. Manigault twice cut his own wrists with the knife, saying, "kill me," authorities said.
   Mercer County Prosecutor Daniel Giaquinto said preliminary findings suggest the two officers who fatally shot Mr. Manigault outside the residence were justified in doing so. He did not rule out the possibility the armed young man lunged at police intending to be shot.
   A preliminary autopsy report, released by the Mercer County medical examiner Friday, said Mr. Manigault sustained three gunshot wounds and the cause of death was a bullet that entered the top of his head and lodged in his brain. The second shot was to the abdomen and the third to the groin.
   Angelo Onofri, an administrative assistant prosecutor with Mercer County, said the prosecutor’s office is seeking Mr. Manigault’s medical and personal records from the Medical Center and the University of Maryland, and is awaiting toxicology and final autopsy results, expected in about 30 days.
   Princeton Township police Capt. Peter Savalli said Monday that patrolmen Christopher King and Harry Martinez, the two officers who shot Mr. Manigault after he reportedly ignored a command to drop the knife and advanced on them with the weapon in an aggressive manner, have been off duty since the incident Thursday.
   They received treatment with a crisis-counseling team that was called in following the shooting, as well as counseling provided through the township Police Department, Capt. Savalli said.
   Ms. Augustus said Mr. Manigault played soccer and ran track in high school, and described him as a "genuinely nice person who probably got along with everybody."
   She said she attended the University of Maryland with him, where Mr. Manigault was an art major and, she said, successful in academics and quite popular.
   "I really just want to know what happened," Ms. Augustus said of the police shooting, questioning whether his being a black male may have influenced the officers’ actions.
   "The first thing I thought was, why didn’t they try to subdue him, because he obviously wasn’t in his right mind," she said. "Even if he did have this sort of death wish, couldn’t they just have pepper-sprayed him? The whole thing is bizarre."
   Shola Akinrolabu of College Park, Md., who said he was one of Mr. Manigault’s best friends at college, said when he last saw him in December, he seemed optimistic about the future.
   "As far as I’m concerned, there was no precursor, or precipitation or inkling that anything like this was ever going to happen," said Mr. Akinrolabu. "Whatever mental state he went through was brought about very suddenly."
   He said he and Mr. Manigault had planned to attend a friend’s musical performance in Washington, D.C., last Friday as a break from an intense course of study this month to complete two courses toward his degree.
   Mr. Akinrolabu described his friend as a humble young man of slight build who worked out in the gym because he felt he was too skinny. He said Mr. Manigault was very close to his mother, and loved art and graphic design, jazz and animals.
   "I’m just sorry it ended the way it did," Mr. Akinrolabu said. "I’m sorry for Jelani, the Manigault family as well as the Sword family. My heart goes out to both families."