Police and emergency personnel responded to the scene of a fire at a Joline Avenue home Sept. 1. The deaths of the four members of the family who lived at the home were the result of a murder/suicide, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER ERIC SUCAR The deaths of four members of a Long Branch family, including two young children, have been ruled a murder/ suicide by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.
Lyndon “Shane” Beharry, 35, a Long Branch Public Works employee, Amanda Morris, 29, and their sons, Brandon Beharry, 7, and Brian Beharry, 4, were identified as the victims recovered from the home at 245 Joline Avenue on the evening of Sept. 1.
All four later died at Monmouth Medical Center.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Morris and her two sons were homicide victims, sustaining gunshot wounds.
While an official cause of death is pending additional studies, all four individuals had injuries consistent with gunshot wounds, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The fire has been classified incendiary in nature.
Lyndon Beharry had a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Long Branch police and firefighters arrived at the Joline Avenue home in response to multiple 911 calls at 11:48 p.m. reporting a fire.
Once on scene, fire officials elevated the blaze to two alarms and requested assistance from additional fire companies from West Long Branch, Sea Bright, Oakhurst, Oceanport and Eatontown. The fire was quickly suppressed.
Firefighters and police officers from the Long Branch Fire Department discovered the four individuals inside a second-floor bedroom, and all four were transported to Monmouth Medical Center, where despite life-saving efforts, all died.
“I am in extreme shock over what happened, we had no evidence of any signs leading up to this,” said Fred Migliaccio, director of the city’s Department of Public Works, and Lyndon Beharry’s supervisor.
Beharry had worked for the department for 16 years and was an exemplary employee, he said.
“Shane was an excellent mechanic, extremely talented and always fun to be around,” he said. “He kept the garage that we worked in upbeat. The day after the fire, Kim King said she was visiting her mother, who lives two doors away from the Beharry home, when the fire occurred.
“We just stood out for hours, until about 1:30 in the morning,” she said. “We went to Monmouth Medical to check on the family around 2:30 [a.m.] and they were already pronounced dead.”
King said the family had lived in the house for two to three years and expressed surprise at what happened.
“Unfortunately I didn’t get to know them, but from what I hear, they were a very nice couple, and I’m shocked,” King said.
The Long Branch Police Department and the Prosecutor’s Office with assistance from the Long Branch and Monmouth County Fire Marshal’s Office are conducting the investigation.
Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Pamela Ricciardi, of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, at 800- 533-7443 or Detective Rich O’Brien, of the Long Branch Police Department, at 732- 222-1000.