County awaits autopsy results.
By: Leon Tovey
JAMESBURG The Middlesex County prosecutor’s office is awaiting results of an autopsy and a toxicological report in its investigation into why a Jamesburg woman died in police custody Monday night.
According to a press release issued by Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan on Tuesday, 47-year-old Ann Fitch of Perrineville Road died at 7:07 p.m. Monday after being arrested and charged with possession of cocaine earlier in the day.
The county medical examiner’s office conducted an autopsy Tuesday, but according to Assistant Prosecutor Ronald Abramowitz, the cause of Ms. Fitch’s death had not been determined by The Cranbury Press’s Thursday afternoon deadline.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Ms. Fitch was taken into custody at the intersection of Perrineville Road and Forsgate Drive at 5:20 p.m. Monday by borough police officers who were executing a search warrant for her home.
At the time of her arrest, Ms. Fitch was riding in a car driven by Jermaine Miller of Jamesburg, who was not charged.
While in custody in a holding cell at Jamesburg Police Headquarters, officers noticed that Ms. Fitch was "in distress," according the prosecutor’s office. Paramedics responding to police headquarters were unable to revive her and she was pronounced dead at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
Police Chief David Lester said Wednesday that Ms. Fitch had not appeared visibly ill or injured at the time of her arrest and that she had not resisted officers when she was taken into custody. He would not say why the original search warrant was issued.
Ms. Fitch was released from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility on April 16, 2004 after serving almost six years of a seven-year sentence for drug offenses, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

