Classic: Double Murder Suspect Says God Ordered Him To Kill

Jun 9, 2004 10:04 pm US/Eastern

OCEAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) A man accused of dismembering his grandmother and his ex-girlfriend told police he was acting on orders from God, authorities said Wednesday.

Rosario "Russell" Miraglia, 31, told police at the crime scene that the victims were descendants of an ancient Lebanese king who had been told by God to kill all of his subjects, Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye said. But some managed to escape, and his grandmother -- and possibly the other woman -- were direct descendants of the fugitives, Kaye quoted Miraglia as saying. "He was there to finish the job," Kaye said, adding that investigators have been unable to find any Biblical reference to such a king. Miraglia, who was expected to undergo psychiatric evaluation soon, referred to the house as "the gateway to Hell," he added. Inside, police found a bloodbath: both women's heads, hands and feet were hacked off, and placed next to their bloody torsos.

Miraglia was ordered held Wednesday on $2 million bail, charged with two counts of murder. The prosecutor's office will decide in the next few weeks whether to seek the death penalty. Miraglia called police Tuesday and emerged from his grandmother's home on Lake View Avenue in Ocean Township at about 10 a.m., covered in blood and saying there were two dead women inside, Kaye said. Police found the body of 87-year-old Julia Miraglia on the first floor and the body of 31-year-old Leigh L. Martinez on the second floor, Kaye said. Martinez was a former girlfriend and the mother of Miraglia's child, police said. Authorities said the two women lived in the house, but Miraglia did not. He told police he was homeless, and that his last address was a halfway house in Newark, which he left about four months ago after undergoing treatment for alcohol and drug dependence. A carving knife and a meat cleaver were found on the first floor next to the grandmother's body, Kaye said.

Police were summoned to the home after a relative, Jules Martelli, 84, came to visit. He usually brought Julia Miraglia her breakfast, checked up on her, and watched television with her. Upon hearing Martelli's knocks at the door, Rosario Miraglia opened it and asked if he could use his uncle's cellular telephone, which he used to call police, Kaye said. Miraglia and Martinez had a 6-year-old son together who had previously been removed from his mother's custody by the state Division of Youth and Family Services, and is living with a foster family in Monmouth County, Kaye said. Martinez had a new boyfriend, but it was unclear whether that had anything to do with the slayings, authorities said.