Door-to-door salesman charged with murder in Jackson stabbing
JACKSON – A door-to-door solicitor for Verizon was charged in the stabbing death Thursday of a township man during a street fight that occurred after the resident rejected the assailant's sales pitch, said Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer and township Police Chief Matthew Kunz.
Michael Tsamas, 32, of the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge, was arrested Thursday night and charged with the murder of Joseph Delgardio, Billhimer and Kunz said in a joint news release. Tsamas also was charged with possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon.
The defendant was arrested at the scene of the stabbing, in the area of West Veterans Highway and Conor Road, where police were dispatched after receiving a call about 6:15 p.m. of a man lying in a pool of blood in the roadway.
The responding officers found Delgardio, 44, with a severe stab wound to his neck. Firefighters were already on the scene giving the victim cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the man was pronounced dead after the life-saving measures proved fruitless, police said.
An ensuing investigation by township police, the prosecutor's Major Crime Unit and the Ocean County Sheriff's Crime Scene Investigation Unit determined that Tsamas had been hired by a company to go door-to-door to solicit new customers for Verizon, the news release said.
Investigators learned that when Tsamas knocked on Delgardio’s door, the resident told the solicitor he was not interested in his sales pitch, the release said.
Tsamas left the residence but, shortly afterward, Delgardio confronted him on the street, the investigation determined. The pair became embroiled in a fight that ended when Tsamas took a knife out of his pocket and stabbed the victim in the neck, authorities alleged.
The township has a "No-Knock Registry'' that limits door-to-door solicitations, but it could not be immediately determined whether the victim's residence was on the registry.
No canvassing, peddling, itinerant vending or door-to-door sales are permitted at premises that are on the registry, according to the township's no-knock ordinance. Residents who request their homes be placed on the registry receive a sticker to place on the door.
No-knock ordinances, which are similar to the federal "Do Not Call'' registry, came into prevalence after the brutal murder in 2004 of an elderly widow in her home in Toms River, then known as Dover Township, by a teenage door-to-door magazine salesman from Chicago.
The salesman, Azriel Bridge, then 17, was among a group from the Midwest selling magazine subscriptions in New Jersey for an Indiana magazine clearinghouse.
The victim, Shirley Reuter, 77, let Bridge into her home on Chestnut Street for a drink of water and to use the bathroom while he was canvassing her neighborhood for sales on a hot day in June.
Friends of Reuter found the widow dead in her home on June 10, 2004, after she missed a choir rehearsal the night before.
Bridge, in pleading guilty to Reuter's murder, said he tried to steal the victim's checkbook, but when she confronted him, he beat her with a fireplace bellows and poker and stabbed her with a knife that he took from her kitchen. Then, he said he cleaned the knife, placed it back in the butcher block in the kitchen and called his supervisor to say he had met his sales quota.
Bridge was prosecuted as an adult because of the seriousness of the crime. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison, with a requirement that he serve 85 percent of that, or 46 years and nine months, before he can be considered for release on parole. Bridge, now 36, won't come up for parole until 2051, according to the state Department of Corrections website.
Tsamas, meanwhile, is in the Ocean County Jail, awaiting a first court appearance and detention hearing to determine if he will be held there without bail pending trial. Those proceedings are scheduled for Thursday before Superior Court Judge Michael T. Collins, Billhimer said.
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.
Nicolas Fernandes is the early morning breaking news reporter. A lifelong New Jersey resident, he has previously worked as a features writer and sports reporter. Contact him at 732-540-4401 or nfernandes@gannettnj.com
Staff writer Jean Mikle also contributed to this article.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Jackson NJ stabbing suspect, an Old Bridge man, charged with murder
