Both shot in the face, stabbed and dead; daughter goes on trial in LBI murders

TOMS RIVER -Worried that her 75-year old mother from New Jersey wasn't answering her cell phone, Valerie Lewis Evans called the Surf City landline of her mother's live-in boyfriend on Oct. 2, 2021, and got a strange voice on the other end of the line.

John wasn't home, the woman told Evans.

"Can I ask what this about?'' Evans said the woman asked her.

When Evans told her who she was and why she was calling, the woman said, "Oh, hey, this is Sherry, Jack's daughter. Nice to finally meet you,'' Evans told an Ocean County jury Wednesday.

The woman later sent her a text with a cell phone number she claimed was that of her father, John "Jack'' Enders, the longtime boyfriend of Evan's mother, but when Evans called it, it was a non-working number, Evans testified.

Still unable to reach her mother or Enders the next day, Evans, of Norfolk, Virginia, called police in Surf City and asked them to check on the couple's welfare, she testified.

When police went to the North Seventh Street home, they found Enders, 87, slumped in a recliner, with articles of clothing strewn all over him, Kristin Pressman, assistant Ocean County prosecutor, told the jury.  Francoise Pitoy, 75, Evan's daughter and Enders' girlfriend of 20 years, was curled up and face-down at the bottom of a staircase, Pressman said.

Both of them had been shot in the face, both were stabbed all over their bodies and both were dead at the hands of Enders' daughter, Sherry Lee Heffernan, Pressman asserted in her opening statement to the jury at Heffernan's trial in the double murder case.

Pressman said there is proof through surveillance video, license-plate readers and cell-phone tracking to show that Heffernan, 57, left her home in Landenberg, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 29, 2021, traveled in her white Winnebago to her father's house and later returned home in the Winnebago.

Heffernan's footprints were found in the kitchen of the house, and her DNA was on three doorknobs, Pressman said. Francois' blood was on a fence out back, where a figure was seen on surveillance video climbing over it while carrying items from the crime scene, the assistant prosecutor said.

More: Daughter left bloody footprints at double-murder scene in dad’s LBI home: prosecutor

Heffernan's attorney, Steven Altman, said it's not known who was driving the recreational vehicle that was tracked from Pennsylvania to the home of the victims, whether the driver ever got out of it or if anyone else was in it. Altman said the case against Heffernan is all circumstantial.

"This shouldn't be state vs. Sherry Heffernan,'' Altman said. "It should be state vs. RV.''

Pressman proffered no motive for the killings, but the third witness who was called to testify Wednesday alluded to one.

Andrew Vero, Enders' grandson and the son of Heffernan's sister, testified he only learned after Enders' funeral that he was the sole heir to his grandfather's estate, which included the six-bedroom home on Barnegat Bay that was under contract to be sold at the time of the killings.

More: Cops say inheritance was motive for LBI double murder; What do the wills say?

His grandfather's will put everything in trust for him until he turns 40, said Vero, 32, of Morgantown, West Virginia.

Surf City Patrolman William Robinson was the state's first witness. He testified he went to the home for a welfare check on Enders and Pitoy and found the doors locked. After peering through a window and spotting Enders in the recliner, covered with articles of clothing, with a stab wound to his neck, he used a slim-jim to gain entry into the home.

As soon as he got in, "I immediately detected the odor of decomposition,'' Robinson testified.

He went about the house, looking for potential other victims or perpetrators, being careful not to step in blood on the floor, he said. When he got to the living room, he saw a woman lying in a significant amount of blood, curled up in a fetal position at the bottom of the staircase, the officer testified. He said he noticed a large slash wound on the woman.

During his testimony, Robinson identified crime scene photos, including a gruesome one of Pitoy. At the conclusion of his testimony, Heffernan put her head in her lap and sobbed uncontrollably, prompting Superior Court Judge Kimarie Rahill to call for a break.

Evans was the first witness after the break. She had been sequestered up until then and had not seen the bloody crime-scene photo of her mother.

Evans sobbed silently when Pressman asked her why she was trying to reach her mother on Oct. 2, 2021.

"She sent my husband a birthday card, and it came early, so I asked my husband, 'Did you call Mom and thank her for the card,' and he said, 'Yea, but it went straight to voicemail.'"

When she couldn't reach her mother, she called Enders' landline, Evans testified. That's when a woman answered and later identified herself as Sherry, Evans said.

The woman told her she didn't have Enders' cell phone number but that she had texted him, Evans said. That made Evans wonder how she could have texted him if she didn't have his number, she said.

After that, the woman sent her a text with a phone number she said was Enders',  which she said she got from her son, Evans testified. But, when she called it, it was a non-working number, she said.

"I called her back,'' Evans said. "She never answered. No more phone calls. No more text messages.''

Later, when a crime-scene detective was on the stand narrating a crime-scene video, Evans left the courtroom in tears after viewing her mother's bloody body on the staircase.

Other witnesses included a pair of longtime friends of the victims who said they told Enders they were going to stop by to visit him on Sept. 29, 2021 on the way from one of their homes in Stone Harbor to the other's relatives in Pennsylvania.

Geraline Greim of The Villages, Florida, testified that when she called Enders on Sept. 28, 2021, to tell him of their plans to visit him the next day, "John said, 'OK, I'll be here. Francois has to get her nails done, but I'll be here all day.''

When she and her friend, Judith Miller of Stone Harbor, arrived at Enders' home the next day, the doors were locked, and there was no response to their knocks, both Greim and Miller testified. Both said Enders never left his doors locked.

Greim testified they waited on the back porch for about 20 minutes before she said to Miller, "Doesn't look like they're coming back. We might as well go.'''

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Daughter goes on trial in LBI murders of father and girlfriend