What's up with cold case against mother and son in Long Branch family murders?
FREEHOLD Once looking at the potential of spending the rest of their lives behind bars in the decades-old murders of two relatives, a mother and son formerly of Long Branch will now most likely avoid any time in prison.
In a case with a long and tortuous history, Dolores Morgan and her son, Ted Connors, have pleaded guilty to vastly downgraded charges in the case involving the murders in Long Branch in the 1990s of Morgan's daughter and husband, who were Connors' sister and adoptive father.
Morgan, 70, and Connors, 51, both of Delray Beach, Florida, and formerly of Long Branch, both admitted lying to investigators who were probing the murders of Ana Mejia and Nicholas "Bruce'' Connors. Morgan admitted she lied to cast suspicion away from her and onto others.
The mother and son, both charged with the murders, pleaded guilty to two counts each of hindering their own prosecution. The charges were downgraded from murder.
They entered their guilty pleas Thursday at a hearing before Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley.
The guilty pleas resolve a case plagued with problems that included a mistrial in 2021, when a jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, and a determination by Oxley that prosecutors at the 2021 trial deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.
Both defendants were not arrested and charged with the murders until January 2020 as a result of a cold-case review.
While the mother and son could face a maximum of 10 years in prison on the charges they pleaded guilty to, or five years on each count, the state will recommend both be sentenced to four-year concurrent terms on each count, with no proscribed period of parole ineligibility, said R. Diane Aifer, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor.
Oxley said that unless a pre-sentence investigation uncovers unanticipated information, he plans to sentence both defendants to no more than two years and nine days behind bars, which represents the time they have already served in the Monmouth County Jail before they were released in January 2022 following the October 2021 mistrial.
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Both defendants, as part of the plea agreement, will withdraw their motions to dismiss the indictment against them and forego any appeals of unfavorable rulings already made on previous motions to dismiss the indictment.
The case stems from the Dec. 8, 1994, murder of Mejia, 25, and the May 14, 1995, murder of Nicholas Connors.
Mejia was found stabbed to death in her Long Branch apartment. Connors was found shot to death in the Connors’ family home.
At the 2021 trial, Meghan Doyle and Noah Heck, assistant Monmouth County prosecutors, argued that Morgan orchestrated the murder of her daughter, and her son committed it, because they thought Mejia was cooperating with authorities in an investigation involving alleged drug dealing by the family.
The assistant prosecutors argued at the 2021 trial that Morgan also orchestrated her husband's shooting death the following May and enlisted her son to commit it so that she could collect on his life insurance policy.
An alleged accomplice, Jose Carrero, 52, of Jackson, testified at the trial that he was with Ted Connors when the murders were committed. But Oxley said he deemed Carrero's testimony to be "less than credible'' and the remainder of the state's evidence "mostly circumstantial,'' when he ordered Morgan and Connors released from jail following the mistrial.
Oxley also said previously that the assistant prosecutors who handled the trial blatantly and deliberately withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense attorneys.
More: Long Branch family murders: Judge says prosecutors blatantly withheld evidence
The withheld evidence consisted of handwritten notes from 1995 indicating that Carrero, the star prosecution witness, confessed to an acquaintance that it was he - not Ted Connors - who killed Nicholas Connors.
Following that, the case was reassigned to Aifer.
During the plea hearing, attorneys Jonathan Petty, representing Connors, and Jason Seidman, representing Morgan, questioned their clients to elicit a factual basis for their guilty pleas.
Being questioned by Petty, Connors admitted he intentionally lied to police about his whereabouts on certain dates and times amid both murder investigations, knowing he was a person of interest, to avoid being charged.
Morgan, being questioned by Seidman, admitted she lied in order to cast suspicion on another family in relation to Mejia's murder. She also admitted lying to trying to lead investigators into believing her husband's murder was retribution for a bad business deal.
Oxley scheduled the pair's sentencings for April 26.
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: Will mother and son go to prison in Long Branch cold-case murders?
