BREAKING NEWS: Woman’s boyfriend charged with aggravated assault in connection with fight.
By: Sharlee DiMenichi
A Major Road woman died Tuesday after being struck Sunday night by a man with whom she lived, according to the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office.
Middlesex County Medical Examiner Geetha Natarajan said Chrisanne Ciandella, 39, died at 4:30 p.m. of a subdural hematoma, or blood that pooled from broken blood vessel in the brain, according to a press release issued Thursday by the prosecutor’s office. The broken blood vessel was caused by a blow to her head and complicated by alcoholic liver disease, the release said.
The release said her boyfriend, John Mitchell, had punched her just above the right eye during a physical altercation at their Major Road residence. The two had been arguing, the release said.
Ms. Ciandella left the house and walked along Major Road, where she collapsed.
Mr. Mitchell, 45, has been charged with aggravated assault and is being held at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center on $150,000 bail. The release did not list any other charges and Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan was not available for additional comment.
The prosecutor’s office said Ms. Ciandella was found unconscious on the shoulder of the road shortly after midnight Monday.
South Brunswick police said a driver on Major Road reported seeing Ms. Ciandella lying by the roadside. She was taken to the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick where she never regained consciousness, the prosecutor’s release said.
The South Brunswick Police Department did not have any record of previous domestic abuse incidents involving either of them.
A neighbor of the couple said he had not heard anything the night of the assault but that he had previously heard sounds of altercations from the house.
"There were occasionally loud arguments we could hear," said Paul Brown.
Another neighbor said she had no inkling of any turmoil at the house.
"They kept to themselves," said Ernestine Thompson.