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(NEW YORK) — Nearly two decades after disguising himself as a firefighter to commit one of the most twisted sex crimes in New York City history, Peter Braunstein is days away from his first parole hearing and the prosecutor who put him in prison contends he’s still a “danger to society.”

Braunstein, a 61-year-old former fashion magazine writer who was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison, is scheduled to have his initial parole hearing the week of Aug. 18, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Corrections told ABC News. But prosecutors claim that his nearly 20 years of incarceration have done little to reform him.

“He has shown himself to be a determined, angry and vengeful man. Time and again he has demonstrated that he is a danger to society, and he has clearly and repeatedly stated that should he be released from prison he will continue to be a danger to society,” Maxine Rosenthal, senior counsel for the Special Victim’s Division of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, wrote in a July 25 letter to the Parole Board, urging the panel to reject Braunstein’s bid for parole.

The assistant district attorney who prosecuted Braunstein added, “In sum, this defendant is not a worthy candidate for release.”

Rosenthal noted that in a series of media interviews following his conviction, Braunstein never expressed remorse, and in several interviews said, “I regret the choice of victim, but not the crime itself” and that he believed “the crime was justified.”

The prosecutor also said that even after being convicted and sent to prison, Braunstein violated court orders by continuing a “campaign of harassment and intimidation” of an ex-girlfriend until at least 2014 by sending letters or attempting to call her, her employer and her relatives from prison. Braunstein pleaded guilty to menacing the ex-girlfriend, a magazine beauty editor, and was placed on probation just three months before committing the infamous sex attack.

“In response, letters were sent to the prison superintendent requesting that a negative correspondence order be issued prohibiting the defendant from having any further contact with the former girlfriend,” Rosenthal wrote in the letter to the Parole Board.

The ex-girlfriend, who testified against Braunstein at his trial, died in June from cancer.

Braunstein, who is serving his sentence at the Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo, has not replied to a letter from ABC News requesting comment.

His former defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, told ABC News that Braunstein should be set free.

“Peter was and, I’m sure, still is very smart and enormously creative and talented. I can only hope that the Parole Board will give him the chance to enjoy life and to enjoy it beyond the walls of a prison,” said Gottlieb, who used an insanity defense at Braunstein’s 2007 trial that was rejected by the jury.

‘The crime stood out then, and it stands out now’

In 2007, Braunstein, a former writer for the fashion magazine Women’s Wear Daily, was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison after a Manhattan jury convicted him of first-degree sexual abuse, kidnapping, robbery and other crimes tied to the infamous attack on Halloween night 2005.

During his sentencing, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber told Braunstein that by committing the crime as a fake firefighter, he had not only terrorized the victim, but “every woman living in New York who might trust a fireman or a policeman in a similar situation,” The New York Times reported.

According to prosecutors, Braunstein sexually tormented a then-36-year-old woman for more than a dozen hours after staging an elaborate hoax to coax her into opening her door by pretending to be a firefighter responding to a blaze at her apartment building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan after he set off smoke bombs in the hallway.

The victim was a former colleague of Braunstein, who had worked closely with his ex-girlfriend at W magazine, a sister publication of Women’s Wear Daily. In a series of media interviews he did from prison after his conviction, Braunstein said he targeted her after becoming obsessed with her as a symbol of what he hated about the fashion industry and blamed for his downfall after he was fired from his magazine job.

“She was the one I took it out on,” Braunstein told ABC’s “20/20” in a 2007 post-conviction interview. “I was thinking really primarily in terms of revenge and suicide at this point in my life.”

In the interview, he described entering the victim’s building, changing into his firefighter gear, igniting two smoke bombs and banging on the victim’s door, yelling, “Fire Department.”

He told “20/20” that once the victim opened her door, he pulled a gun on her that he said was a replica Baretta and ordered her to “get on the floor if you don’t like want me to blow your head off.”

Braunstein said he put a chloroform-soaked rag over her face, rendering her unconscious, stripped off her clothes and tied her to a bed, placing a pair of high-heeled shoes on her that he found in her closet. Over the next 12 hours, he admitted in the “20/20” interview to touching her sexually, but said he did not rape her.

In her letter to the Parole Board, Rosenthal said Braunstein threatened the victim during the ordeal with a serrated knife.

Asked in the “20/20” interview why he sexually tormented the victim, Braunstein said, “I guess to humiliate her.”

Before leaving the apartment, Braunstein stole a Gucci fur coat, a Louis Vuitton carry-on luggage bag, the victim’s driver’s license, resume and $800 cash, according to prosecutors. With lipstick, he scrawled a departing note on the victim’s bathroom mirror: “Bye — Hope things turn around for U soon.”

The New York Police Department launched a nationwide manhunt that lasted six weeks. Braunstein was captured in Tennessee when a witness recognized him from the show “America’s Most Wanted” and alerted police. As officers approached Braunstein, he attempted suicide by stabbing himself in the neck with a knife, according to Memphis police.

“The crime stood out then, and it stands out now, not only because it was exceptionally violent, but also because the perpetrator impersonated a firefighter. That really creates a ripple effect for the public because people have to wonder now if it’s safe to trust someone who is dressed as a police officer, a firefighter, given that this horrific crime was perpetrated by someone impersonating a member of those services,” Jane Manning, director of the victim rights advocacy group Women’s Equal Justice and a former sex crimes prosecutor, told ABC News.

Manning said one of the most important responsibilities of the Parole Board is to protect the public.

“Based on everything we know about this case, women in New York City are a lot safer with this perpetrator behind bars, and I hope the parole board will make a decision to keep him behind bars,” Manning said. “There are some cases that are a difficult call; this is not one of them. This is not a person who belongs out on the streets.”

‘Sickening and heartbreaking’

Angelo Barela, a former neighbor of Braunstein’s victim, told ABC News the crime jeopardized the lives of him and other residents of his building.

“Let’s put it this way: the man endangered the lives of many people who lived in 45 apartments,” Barela said.

Barela, who has moved out of the state since the crime, recalled noticing the thick smoke filling the halls of his building on the night of the attack.

Barela said he and his partner began banging on doors to alert neighbors, several of them elderly with mobility issues.

“It made me feel that if there was a fire, that certain people were not able or did not want to leave,” Barela said.

He recalled knocking on the door of the victim and getting no answer.

Barela said he learned after the fact that the smoke was a ruse that enabled the perpetrator to get into the victim’s apartment. He said he still feels guilty that he couldn’t help the victim.

“It was sickening and heartbreaking,” Barela said in a phone interview. “I think most of the people in that building felt like we didn’t help her, or couldn’t help her, because we had no idea what was going on.”

Barela said he hopes the Parole Board will keep Braunstein in prison.

“Despite what he might have done to one person,” Barela said, “he affected the whole building and he made women in our building feel bad.”

A Department of Corrections spokesperson said the Parole Board will likely release a decision on Braunstein’s parole within three weeks of the hearing, which is closed to the public.

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(SEVIER COUNTY, Utah) — Remains of a human foot found inside a hiking shoe on the shores of a lake in Utah belong to a man who went missing in 1997, according to officials.

The remains were found on the shores of Fishlake Utah in May, according to the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators determined the hiking boot was made in 1996 for only one year. Investigators were able to tie the boot to a cold case disappearance from September 1997.

David White intended to go fishing with some friends and had rented a hotel room nearby. When the plans with friends fell through, White went fishing anyway, according to the sheriff’s office.

His boat was later found trolling across Fishlake with no one onboard, according to officials.

“A shoe and hat were found floating in the water giving a possible indication where White was believed to have fallen in. There were no witnesses at the time. All of this was a mystery until now,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release.

The original search for White lasted five days and no further evidence was found at the time.

“This case has been on the mind of every one of the SAR members who were involved in the search 28 years ago. It is good to finally have some closure for the family and the searchers,” Sheriff Nathan Curtis said in a statement.

The medical examiner’s office directed investigators to collect DNA from the foot and DNA from a daughter and sent to Bode Cellmark Forensics.

Testing revealed a parental match with 99.9994% certainty.

“We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office, SAR’s, Detective Sgt Pearson, Detective Sgt Larsen, Sheriff Curtis, and Gary (Moulton) from Fishlake Lodge for their incredible support and tireless efforts. We are also deeply grateful to the individual and his dog who found the shoe – without them, we would not be where we are today,” Stefanie Bennett, the daughter of White, said in a statement released by officials.

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(NEW YORK) — Known for the eponymous reptiles that inhabit the nearby swamps, the migrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” faces the possibility of being shut down over concerns about some of the area’s lesser-known inhabitants — the Everglades’ bats, panthers, and storks.

A federal judge on Wednesday is set to hold an evidentiary hearing over whether to block operations at the controversial facility because construction of the site allegedly bypassed federally required environmental impact studies.

The hearing — at which federal, state, and tribal officials are expected to testify — comes amid heightened scrutiny of the facility, which was once touted as a “one-stop shop to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.”

Immigrant advocates have alleged that detainees have endured inhumane conditions, including flooded facilities, spoiled food, and sweltering heat — and that they have limited access to their attorneys and are effectively housed in a jurisdictional “black hole.”

In a separate case challenging the legality of the facility, a federal judge ordered federal and state officials by Thursday to provide documentation showing which government or contractor is authorized to detain people at the sprawling complex. With state and federal officials dodging responsibility for the site, advocates have criticized the government for being vague about who runs the facility in order to bypass oversight.

While Wednesday’s hearing is limited to environmental issues — including impacts on the nearby Big Cypress National Preserve — the testimony is expected to shine a light on the operations of the facility and could result in a federal judge ordering the facility to be shut down until the required environmental impact studies are conducted.

“They have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators. You don’t have to pay them so much,” Trump said last month when visiting the facility, adding that he’d like to see similar facilities constructed.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced a similar partnership — this time between the federal government and the state of Indiana — to construct a migrant detention facility dubbed the “Speedway Slammer.”

Located 50 miles west of Miami in the heart of the Florida Everglades, “Alligator Alcatraz” was quickly constructed over a matter of weeks, utilizing hundreds of tents, trailers, and other temporary facilities to potentially house more than 3,000 detainees. The facility was built on the grounds of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a sparsely used piece of tarmac owned by Miami-Dade County.

The site was initially conceived in the late 1960s as part of an ill-fated plan to build the “Everglades Jetport.” As President Richard Nixon ushered in an era of new environmental protections — including the law now being used to challenge Alligator Alcatraz — the plan to build the site was scuttled, and the remaining tarmac was later used as an aviation training site.

“Now, history is repeating itself as [plaintiffs] once again must act to prevent destructive development in the heart of the Everglades ecosystem in the same location,” the current lawsuit says.

The facility sits next to the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Big Cypress Area, ecologically sensitive and protected areas that house threatened species including the Everglade snail kite, Florida panther, wood stork, and Florida bonneted bat.

Alligator Alcatraz also neighbors land leased to the Miccosukee Indian Tribe, including villages, a school, traditional hunting areas, and sacred sites. The Miccosukee Tribe joined the lawsuit last month, arguing that the facility threatens to damage nearby tribal villages.

“The hasty transformation of the Site into a mass detention facility, which includes the installation of housing units, construction of sanitation and food services systems, industrial high-intensity lighting infrastructure, diesel power generators, substantial fill material altering the natural terrain, and provision of transportation logistics (including apparent planned use of the runway to receive and deport detainees) poses clear environmental impacts,” the lawsuit said.

The environmental groups and the tribe that brought the case allege that the sprawling facility was built without the federal or state government conducting an environmental impact statement, which is required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) so the public and lawmakers can understand the impact of a project. They also argue that the government failed to get public input on the project.

The groups are asking U.S. District Judge Kathleen Mary Williams, an Obama appointee, to block ongoing operations at the facility until the government fully complies with NEPA and stop any ongoing construction.

Florida Department of Emergency Management executive director Kevin Guthrie, a named defendant in the lawsuit, has argued the facility is run by the state, which is not subject to NEPA regulations. He also claims that the site’s environmental impact is minimal because it was built on a location already serving as an active airfield.

The Department of Justice has also argued that the environmental groups cannot prove irreparable harm and that NEPA does not give a court the power to block the use of the facility.

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(APACHE COUNTY, Ariz.) — Four people were killed when a medical transport plane crashed and caught fire in Arizona, authorities said.

The Beechcraft 300 crashed Tuesday afternoon while landing at the Chinle Municipal Airport, in the Navajo Nation, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The aircraft was en route to pick up a patient from a nearby hospital at the time, according to the Navajo Police Department.

All four people on board the plane died, police said.

The cause of the crash is unknown at this time, police said.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

The dual-propellor medical transport plane was owned by CSI Aviation, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, police said.

“This is a tragic loss to the families of those onboard and to medical air and first responder community,” the Navajo Police Department said in a statement.

All access to the airport is currently closed due to the investigation, police said.

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(SOLVANG, Calif.) — The Gifford Fire, a wildfire burning in Central California that has destroyed over 83,000 acres in five days, continues to rage and is now accompanied by two additional fires emerging nearby, according to officials.

Since it started on Friday afternoon, the Gifford Fire — which is situated within the Los Padres National Forest in Solvang, California — has burned 83,933 acres and has only reached 9% containment, prompting evacuation orders for those in the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, officials said.

While the flames have been centered around thick brush and rugged terrain, officials said over 800 structures are threatened by this wildfire.

Nearly 2,000 personnel have been dispatched to help fight the flames, with “great progress made on the west, north and east flanks of the fire” on Monday, according to Los Padres National Forest officials. Winds could potentially reach 20 mph on Tuesday, which could “test lines already constructed,” officials said.

Warmer weather on Thursday and Friday could increase the “fire behavior” and pose a threat to the already raging flames, officials said.

On Tuesday, officials said they will deploy helicopters to “deliver very significant water drops” and will establish two new base camps to allow personnel to “more efficiently access the fire perimeter.”

An air quality alert in Cuyama, California, and an air quality watch for the rest of Santa Barbara County continues to remain in place “until conditions improve,” according to the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District.

The fire is also impacting those outside of California, with smoke from the flames filtering into the Las Vegas Valley, “reducing visibility and air quality,” according to the National Weather Service Las Vegas.

Officials expect smoky conditions in the Las Vegas area “for at least another couple of days.”

Along with the Gifford Fire, firefighters are now also battling two additional flames in Central California that began on Monday — the Rosa Fire and the Gold Fire, according to Cal Fire.

The Rosa Fire, which is situated within Riverside County, has prompted evacuation orders and has destroyed 1,200 acres as of Tuesday, according to Cal Fire. The Gold Fire, which is located in San Bernardino County, is centered around “steep, rugged terrain in the northern area of the Mountaintop Ranger District” and has burned 348 acres, Cal Fire said.

As of Tuesday, the Rosa Fire is 5% contained and the Gold Fire is 0% contained, officials said.

The cause of all three fires remains under investigation, officials said.

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(JACKSON, Tenn.) — A manhunt for the suspect in the Tennessee killings of four people and the kidnapping of a baby ended Tuesday when he was taken into custody, police said.

Austin Robert Drummond, 28, was taken into custody in Jackson by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation after a weeklong manhunt, according to the Jackson, Tennessee, Police Department.

During a news conference Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement officials said Drummond was captured after multiple community residents spotted him and called 911.

“This is a perfect example of police and community cooperation,” David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Drummond, who had been considered armed and dangerous, is the prime suspect in the July 29 killings of 38-year-old Cortney Rose; Rose’s children, 20-year-old Adrianna Williams and 15-year-old Braydon Williams; and Adrianna Williams’ boyfriend, 21-year-old James “Michael” Wilson, according to authorities and family.

The victims were found along a road in Lake County, in northwest Tennessee, authorities said. The same day, Wilson and Williams’ baby was left in a car seat in a “random individual’s front yard” in nearby Dyer County, according to the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities said Drummond knew the victims through his girlfriend, who was the daughter of Rose and sister of Adrianna and Braydon Williams.

A motive for the killings remain under investigation.

During a news conference Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement officials said Drummond was captured after multiple community residents spotted him in Jackson around 8 a.m. and called 911.

“This is a perfect example of police and community cooperation,” said David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Jackson Police Chief Thom Corley said residents spotted Drummond around 8 a.m. Tuesday near a vacant building investigators believe the suspect had been hiding in. He said officers rushed to the area as more 911 calls came in, including one at 8:57 a.m. that helped officers pinpoint Drummond’s location in the woods near the vacant building.

Corley said officers surrounded the area and took Drummond into custody at 9:05 a.m.

“Today we find some peace in knowing that the suspect is no longer a threat,” Corley said.

Corley introduced the three officers at the news conference who captured Drummond, saying, “They were at the right spot and acted immediately and apprehended Drummond.”

“It was really the community that really broke this for us,” Rausch said.

Rausch said Drummond was unarmed at the time of his arrest, but police have since recovered several firearms. Rausch said police will analyze the guns to determine if they were used in the homicides.

Drummond was captured in a wooded area of Jackson just a day after police released an image of him taken Sunday by a home security camera, police said.

At the time he was taken into custody, a reward of up to $30,000 was being offered for information leading to Drummond’s arrest.

Rausch said the reward money will likely be shared by those whose 911 calls led to Drummond’s capture.

Drummond is facing four counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated kidnapping, four counts of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

During the search for Drummond, police arrested four people accused of being accessories after the fact to the homicides.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department is set to seek hate crime charges and the death penalty against the alleged gunman who fatally shot two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News Wednesday.

Prosecutors are poised to request that a grand jury indict Elias Rodriguez, as soon as this week, sources said.

He has remained in custody since the fatal shooting of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capitol Jewish Museum on May 21.

CNN first reported news of the expected charges.

Rodriguez was charged via criminal complaint with first-degree murder, murdering foreign officials and using a firearm to commit murder and a crime of violence, a day after the shooting. Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro emphasized at the time that the charges were only initial in nature.

“A young couple at the beginning of their life’s journey, about to be engaged in another country, had their bodies removed in the cold of the night in a foreign city in a body bag. We are not going to tolerate that anymore,” Pirro said during a press briefing on May 22. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated, especially in the nation’s capital.”

Early last month, prosecutors in Rodriguez’s case sought an extension for time to return an indictment against him, noting the complex and unusual nature of the charges he was facing.

Rodriguez was seen in videos shouting “Free, Free Palestine!” inside the museum just minutes after he allegedly shot Lischinsky and Milgrim dozens of times, and later allegedly told police upon his arrest, “I did it for Palestine.”

But to secure an indictment on the new charge that Rodriguez’s acts amounted to a hate crime, prosecutors would need to have evidence that his alleged actions were motivated by antisemitism and not just hatred toward Israel and the war in Gaza.

Rodriguez has not yet entered a plea in his case. A public defender representing him did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

The complaint alleges that Rodriguez shot the couple in the back and then fired again at Milgrim as she tried to crawl away.

Lischinsky, 30, was a researcher in the political department of the Israeli Embassy, while Milgrim, 26, organized U.S. missions to Israel.

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(SHEARON HARRIS LAKE, N.C.) — A 10-year-old girl is dead and a woman suffered “critical injury” after a drunken boater struck swimmers in a North Carolina lake over the weekend, according to officials.

Quinten Gregory Kight, 40, has been charged with felony operating a motor vessel while under the influence, unintentionally causing serious injury to another person, in the incident on Shearon Harris Lake.

Kight was also charged with operating his motor boat on the lake negligently, endangering the life of Jennifer Ann Stahle by not looking forward in the direction of travel and being under the influence, according to court documents.

“This was a heartbreaking accident, but one that was preventable. Alcohol was a factor, and the decision to operate a boat while impaired had devastating consequences,” Chatham County Sheriff Mike Roberson said in a statement on Monday. “We urge everyone to think twice before mixing alcohol with watercraft operation. It only takes a moment for lives to be changed forever.”

Kight was arrested on Monday.

While his bond was initially set at $500,000, Kight has posted an amended bond of $250,000, according to court documents. He is not allowed to operate a motor vehicle of any kind and is subject to cam monitoring, court documents said.

Kight has been appointed a public defender but the identity of his attorney was not immediately clear from court records.

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(BOSTON) — A woman charged with leaking grand jury material related to the Karen Read murder case has pleaded guilty, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.

Jessica Leslie, 34, pleaded guilty in a Boston federal court on Monday to a charge of criminal contempt that accused her of willfully disobeying court rules against disclosure of grand jury information, the DOJ said.

Leslie had served on the grand jury as part of the investigation into Read, who was ultimately acquitted of murder in the 2022 death of her boyfriend.

Federal prosecutors said that between Aug. 11, 2022, and March 4, 2024, Leslie disclosed “sealed information to unauthorized individuals, including the names of various witnesses appearing before a federal grand jury, the substance of witness testimony and other evidence presented to the grand jury.”

Leslie agreed to a sentence of incarceration for one day, deemed served, and 24 months of supervised release, court records said. Her sentencing has been scheduled for Sept. 26.

While the charging document did not specify that Leslie was a grand juror in the Read case, sources confirmed the case to ABC News.

Federal prosecutors did not say how they learned Leslie had disclosed secret grand jury information, but sources said authorities had been monitoring social media accounts and other communications during a case that received widespread attention.

Read was originally indicted by a Boston grand jury in June 2022 in the death of her police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe. Prosecutors alleged Read hit O’Keefe with her car outside the home of a fellow police officer after a night of heavy drinking in January 2022 and then left him to die there during a major blizzard.

The first trial ended in a mistrial last year after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

In a second trial that ended in June, Read was found not guilty of the most serious charges against her — murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene after an accident. She was convicted of operating under the influence of liquor and sentenced to one year of probation.

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(PITTSTOWN, N.J.) — A New Jersey State Police sergeant, who once served on Gov. Phil Murphy’s security detail, is suspected of killing his former girlfriend and the volunteer firefighter she was dating in a house in Franklin Township before dying by suicide, authorities said.

Following Sunday’s double homicide, police discovered Sgt. 1st Class Ricardo Jorge Santos dead in a Mercedes SUV from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot in Johnson Park in Piscataway, New Jersey, according to a statement from the Henderson County Prosecutor’s Office.

Killed in what investigators said was a “targeted act” in Pittstown, Henderson County, were 33-year-old Lauren Semanchik, a local veterinarian, and 29-year-old Tyler Webb, a volunteer firefighter from Forked River, New Jersey, according to the prosecutor’s office.

“Considering the suspect’s subsequent suicide, we recognize that many questions remain, and healing will take time. While justice in the legal sense may not proceed, our commitment to supporting survivors and preventing future tragedies remains unwavering,” Henderson County Prosecutor Renee Robeson said in a statement.

Franklin Township police officers responded to Semanchik’s home around around 12:22 p.m. on Sunday after a 911 caller reported finding an unconscious woman there with “apparent physical trauma,” according to the prosecutor’s office.

Upon entering the Pittstown home, officers found Semanchik and Webb dead from “apparent gunshot wounds from a semiautomatic firearm,” according to the prosecutor’s office.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that Semanchik and Webb were killed on Friday night, officials said. Detectives learned that a 911 call came in around 7:08 p.m. on Friday from an area near Semanchik’s home in which a dispatcher could hear gunshots and screaming in the background, the prosecutor’s office said. Officers responded to the call and checked the area but did not find the source of the gunshots and screaming, according to the prosecutor’s office.

As the investigation unfolded, detectives zeroed in on Santos as the primary suspect after learning he had previously dated Semanchik.

“After ending her relationship with Santos in approximately September 2024, Semanchik accused Santos of “harassing and controlling behavior,” according to the prosecutor’s statement.

The investigation uncovered a video surveillance system with a rear-facing camera that Semanchik had installed in her car, authorities said. Detectives combed through the surveillance footage from Semanchik car and saw that when she left work at the Long Valley Animal Hospital around 5:25 p.m. on Friday, she was followed to her home by a 2008 Mercedes SUV matching Santos’ vehicle, according to the prosecutor’s office. 

Just after 6 p.m. on Friday, an individual was recorded on surveillance video “surreptitiously walking through the wooded area along the driveway” of Semanchik residence, authorities said. The video also showed Webb’s vehicle arriving at the home around 6:45 p.m.

Investigators collected a semiautomatic handgun from the vehicle that Santos’ body was found in and believe the suspect used the firearm to commit the homicides and take his own life.

Santos served in the New Jersey State Police’s executive protection unit, which guards the governor, officials said. He was most recently assigned to the agency’s dignitary protection unit, which guards high-ranking state officials.

“We are shocked and devastated by this horrific tragedy,” a spokesperson for Murphy said in a statement. “Due to the law enforcement investigation currently underway, we will refrain from further comment at this time.”

Friends and colleagues of both victims mourned their horrific death and Robeson urged “anyone experiencing threats, harassment, or abuse to seek help and know thy are not alone.”

“Not only was Lauren a phenomenal veterinarian, she was one of the kindest souls you could ever encounter and a friend to us all,” a colleague of Semancik’s at Long Valley Animal Hospital told New York ABC station WABC.

The Pinewald Pioneer Fire Company in Bayville, New Jersey, where Webb was a volunteer firefighter, released a statement on social media, saying, “Tyler served our department with dedication and honor.”

“His contributions to our company and community will never be forgotten,” the department wrote in the post.

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