BY JESSICA SMITH
Staff Writer
A 20-year-old Old Bridge man was killed and his girlfriend critically wounded after an unknown gunman shot the two while they were seated in a car at the Winding Woods development June 28.
Marquis Maing was pronounced dead less than an hour after the shooting, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. Tina Castaldo, 19, of Old Bridge, was in critical condition at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick.
“They just shot that poor boy and the girl. Now that poor boy’s life is gone,” said Winding Woods resident Jacqueline Butler.
Residents called 911 at 11:45 p.m. to report hearing gunshots near Building 92 of the apartment complex off Bordentown Avenue. Officers from Sayreville, East Brunswick, South River and Spotswood responded to the scene and heard Castaldo beeping the horn and screaming for police.
Police said Castaldo and Maing lived together on Buckeye Avenue. The car they were in was registered to a relative of Castaldo’s.
An autopsy confirmed that Maing died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, which ruled the incident to be a homicide.
Castaldo was also shot multiple times, authorities said. A hospital spokeswoman said Castaldo remained at the hospital Tuesday, but could not release information about her condition at the request of the family.
No weapons were recovered at the scene and the gunman was not found, though a canvass of the neighborhood continued for several days. The Prosecutor’s Office said Monday that it had no further information to report regarding the incident.
“Somebody had to see something,” Butler said. “I don’t understand why people don’t come down and talk to the police.”
Sayreville Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said the investigation has to take its course.
“We have to wait until the investigation is complete to understand the circumstances of why this happened, but this is extraordinarily unusual in the borough of Sayreville,” O’Brien said. “I don’t believe it’s a pattern that’s going to be established. I don’t know, but I believe there are extenuating circumstances to this case. Right now, everything is guesswork and conjecture.”
Butler, who has become an advocate for safety at Winding Woods, said there have been other instances of gunfire in the complex. Shell casings and drugs have been found in one area of the complex in particular, she said, noting that a large amount of the illegal activity she has voiced concerns about have taken place in that area.
“We do not have the proper armed security in this complex,” Butler said. “Anybody can hide in Winding Woods. Anybody can do whatever they want in Winding Woods.”
While Butler acknowledged that police are doing what they can, she is unsatisfied with the lack of security to monitor youths there. She and another resident, Dwayne Santos, collected more than 200 signatures on a petition in an attempt to get the Winding Woods owner to meet with borough officials on the security issue. Butler said friends of Maing are also mobilizing to get something done.
“The whole problem is, they’re not stepping up,” Butler said. “They’re not taking control of what’s happening at the complex.”
The development is owned by Hillside Estates. The property manager said she was unable to comment on the matter.
Sayreville officials are taking a closer look at safety in the complex in response to last week’s fatal shooting.
“We’re going to have the [Police Chief Ed Szkodny] go over the situation,” council President Thomas Pollando said. “We’ve asked the chief to basically go over the area, versus other areas in Sayreville.”
Councilman Dennis Grobelny said that the council’s public safety committee will meet with the police chief and the proprietor of the apartment complex soon.
“We do realize that there is a problem,” Grobelny said.
Borough Councilman Stanley Drwal pledged to find a way to get additional security to residents in the apartment community, whether they have to seek assistance from immigration, customs or state police.
“We are going to find a way,” Drwal said. “We are going to return the streets to the people who are here.”
O’Brien, however, said he did not think additional security was necessary for what he saw as an isolated incident. While the complex had a higher rate of crime than other areas of town 20 years ago, that discrepancy no longer exists, he said.
“There is no elevated rate of police calls in Winding Woods,” O’Brien said.
Butler, who has come before the mayor and council with her concerns on several occasions, has told officials that theft, violence and vandalism occur regularly. Another issue, she said, is children playing with BB guns. Aside from the danger to others, she said she is worried about police seeing the guns and thinking they are real, she said.
A parent of three, Butler monitors children in the complex and has organized activities for youths there in an effort to keep them out of trouble.
“I’m really looking out for the safety of everybody,” Butler said.
Law enforcement officials are asking anyone with information on the shooting to call Detective Richard Belotti of the Sayreville Police Department at (732) 727-4444, or Investigator Eleazar Ricardo of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office at (732) 745-4239.