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Azriel Bridge
Good Samaritan's killer gets 55 years in prison
77-year-old widow let salesman in home
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/7/06
TOMS RIVER --Anything short of life in prison without parole is too good for the selfish teenager who brutally murdered a 77-year-old widow after she let him into her Dover Township home for a drink of water on a hot day when he was going door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions, tearful relatives of the victim told a judge Friday.
The family of murder victim Shirley Reuter left the Ocean County Courthouse disappointed after Superior Court Judge Edward J. Turnbach imposed a 55-year prison term on 19-year-old Azriel Bridge of Chicago.
"I'm very disappointed that this guy has the opportunity to perhaps go b
ack into society and do this again,'' said David Reuter, son of the victim, after Turnb
ach imposed the sentence on Bridge.
"He's obviously a deviant,'' David Reuter said of Bridge, who sat speechless with a blank stare throughout the sentencing hearing.
"I don't understand the judge's decision. I don't,'' Reuter said.
"He got away (with it),'' Shirley Reuter's granddaughter, Devena Gargano of Bayville, Berkeley, said of Bridge. "It should have been life.''
Turnbach sentenced Bridge for the June 9, 2004, murder that terrorized Shirley Reuter's Chestnut Street neighborhood. The judge ordered that Bridge serve 85 percent of the prison term, or 46 years and nine months, before he can be considered for parole.
Turnbach could have imposed a maximum of life in prison with no chance of parole before 63 years and nine months "â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦ the legal equivalent of 85 percent of a life term under the No
Earl
y Re
leas
e Act.
The judge did not explain why he handed down a lesser sentence, but said the crime was "particularly heinous, cruel and depraved,'' and that there w
as no reason for Bridge to do what he did to Reuter, whom the judge called a good Samaritan.
Bridge on Oct. 4 told Turnbach that he beat Reuter with a fireplace bellows and poker and stabbed her with a knife he grabbed from her kitchen after she let him into her Chestnut Street home on a spring day in 2004 when he was canvassing her neighborhood for magazine sales.
The crime prompted a number of communities to pass "no-knock'' ordinances, giving residents the option of barring salespeople from their homes.
Bridge, who was days shy of his 18th birthday at the time, had traveled to New Jersey with a group of at least 11 others from the Midwest selling magazines for Phoenix Imaging, a subsidiary of American Community Services, a magazine clearinghouse based in Michigan City, Ind.
Brid
ge was p
rosecute
d as an adult because of the seriousness of the crime.
After his arrest on June 11, 2004, Bridge told police he had tried to steal Reuter's checkbook after she let him into her home. B
ut when confronted by her, Bridge said he pushed the widow to the ground, struck and stabbed her, wiped the knife clean and placed it back in the butcher block in the kitchen.
After that, he said, he left the house and called his supervisor to say he had met his sales quota.
Reuter had been on the phone with a friend when her phone went dead. Before it did, she had told her friend that she had let a young magazine salesman into her home for a drink of water and to let him use her bathroom.
That, said Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Ronald F. DeLigny, was the irony. Shirley Reuter "extended kindness and compassion to an individual, taken him out of the sun to give him water,'' DeLigny said.
"And where did her kindness get her?
'' D
eLigny asked
.
Bri
dge beat her with the fireplace bellows until it broke, DeLigny said. Not satisfied with that, he grabbed a fireplace poker and struck the widow with it with "such force, the hook on the end was broken off,'' DeLigny said
.
Then Bridge grabbed a knife from the kitchen and used it to slit the victim's throat, DeLigny said.
"I cannot think of a more depraved, cruel, savage murder,'' DeLigny said, asking Turnbach to impose a life prison term.
DeLigny's request echoed that of David Reuter and two of the victim's granddaughters.
"The best thing you can do for me, except to put me in a room with him for five minutes, is to put him away for the rest of his life,'' David Reuter told the judge.
Reuter said his mother was "a giving member of the community.'' She was active in Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Dover Township and belonged to its choir. She ferried elderly people i
n her community
to doctor's
appointments and
to stores.
"We all miss her. We miss her very much,'' Reuter said.
About 15 people "â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦ relatives, friends and neighbors "â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦ sat with him in the courtroom. Shirley Reuter's two granddaughters wept openly.
"My grandmother had a lot of years left in her life,'' Gargano
told Turnbach. "She was a very active, strong woman, and I wish my second daughter was able to meet her.''
Gargano said she was pregnant with her second daughter when her grandmother was murdered, and she nearly went into early labor because of the shock of the crime.
Another granddaughter, DeAnne Fischbach, told Turnbach her grandmother will not have the opportunity to see her grandson, Fischbach's son, grow up.
Fischbach said she can no longer enjoy a night by a fireplace because of the violent images that go through her mind when she thinks of a fireplace poker or bellows.
She said her grandmoth
er suffered because
of her compassion.
"She wa
s trying to be nice by giving him a drink of water and letting him in to use the bathroom, and he turns around and does this awful thing to her,'' Fischbach said. "He needs to stay in jail forever.''
When asked by Turnbach if he had anything to say before he was sentenced, Bridge stared blankly and barely shook his head.
His atto
rney, Deputy Assistant Public Defender Philip Pagano, asked Turnbach to impose a 30-year sentence. He said Bridge was born to a 15-year-old mother and was in and out of psychiatric hospitals for most of his life.
At age 8, Bridge began to smoke marijuana, Pagano said. By age 13, he was drinking and taking Ecstasy pills, Pagano said.
DeLigny said it was Bridge's choice to use drugs. The psychiatric treatment was needed, DeLigny said, because of Bridge's violent tendencies. In fact, a psychiatric report on Bridge noted that his thoughts of murder, sexual assault
and dismemberment were
of "significant c
oncern'' and tha
t he "does not show remorse'' for the murder, DeLigny said.
"He is a threat, a danger,'' DeLigny said. "He should not be amongst the rest of society.''
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A...7/NEWS/60107001
Azriel Bridge
Good Samaritan's killer gets 55 years in prison
77-year-old widow let salesman in home
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/7/06
TOMS RIVER --Anything short of life in prison without parole is too good for the selfish teenager who brutally murdered a 77-year-old widow after she let him into her Dover Township home for a drink of water on a hot day when he was going door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions, tearful relatives of the victim told a judge Friday.
The family of murder victim Shirley Reuter left the Ocean County Courthouse disappointed after Superior Court Judge Edward J. Turnbach imposed a 55-year prison term on 19-year-old Azriel Bridge of Chicago.
"I'm very disappointed that this guy has the opportunity to perhaps go b
ack into society and do this again,'' said David Reuter, son of the victim, after Turnb
ach imposed the sentence on Bridge.
"He's obviously a deviant,'' David Reuter said of Bridge, who sat speechless with a blank stare throughout the sentencing hearing.
"I don't understand the judge's decision. I don't,'' Reuter said.
"He got away (with it),'' Shirley Reuter's granddaughter, Devena Gargano of Bayville, Berkeley, said of Bridge. "It should have been life.''
Turnbach sentenced Bridge for the June 9, 2004, murder that terrorized Shirley Reuter's Chestnut Street neighborhood. The judge ordered that Bridge serve 85 percent of the prison term, or 46 years and nine months, before he can be considered for parole.
Turnbach could have imposed a maximum of life in prison with no chance of parole before 63 years and nine months "â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦ the legal equivalent of 85 percent of a life term under the No
Earl
y Re
leas
e Act.
The judge did not explain why he handed down a lesser sentence, but said the crime was "particularly heinous, cruel and depraved,'' and that there w
as no reason for Bridge to do what he did to Reuter, whom the judge called a good Samaritan.
Bridge on Oct. 4 told Turnbach that he beat Reuter with a fireplace bellows and poker and stabbed her with a knife he grabbed from her kitchen after she let him into her Chestnut Street home on a spring day in 2004 when he was canvassing her neighborhood for magazine sales.
The crime prompted a number of communities to pass "no-knock'' ordinances, giving residents the option of barring salespeople from their homes.
Bridge, who was days shy of his 18th birthday at the time, had traveled to New Jersey with a group of at least 11 others from the Midwest selling magazines for Phoenix Imaging, a subsidiary of American Community Services, a magazine clearinghouse based in Michigan City, Ind.
Brid
ge was p
rosecute
d as an adult because of the seriousness of the crime.
After his arrest on June 11, 2004, Bridge told police he had tried to steal Reuter's checkbook after she let him into her home. B
ut when confronted by her, Bridge said he pushed the widow to the ground, struck and stabbed her, wiped the knife clean and placed it back in the butcher block in the kitchen.
After that, he said, he left the house and called his supervisor to say he had met his sales quota.
Reuter had been on the phone with a friend when her phone went dead. Before it did, she had told her friend that she had let a young magazine salesman into her home for a drink of water and to let him use her bathroom.
That, said Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Ronald F. DeLigny, was the irony. Shirley Reuter "extended kindness and compassion to an individual, taken him out of the sun to give him water,'' DeLigny said.
"And where did her kindness get her?
'' D
eLigny asked
.
Bri
dge beat her with the fireplace bellows until it broke, DeLigny said. Not satisfied with that, he grabbed a fireplace poker and struck the widow with it with "such force, the hook on the end was broken off,'' DeLigny said
.
Then Bridge grabbed a knife from the kitchen and used it to slit the victim's throat, DeLigny said.
"I cannot think of a more depraved, cruel, savage murder,'' DeLigny said, asking Turnbach to impose a life prison term.
DeLigny's request echoed that of David Reuter and two of the victim's granddaughters.
"The best thing you can do for me, except to put me in a room with him for five minutes, is to put him away for the rest of his life,'' David Reuter told the judge.
Reuter said his mother was "a giving member of the community.'' She was active in Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Dover Township and belonged to its choir. She ferried elderly people i
n her community
to doctor's
appointments and
to stores.
"We all miss her. We miss her very much,'' Reuter said.
About 15 people "â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦ relatives, friends and neighbors "â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�Å¡¦ sat with him in the courtroom. Shirley Reuter's two granddaughters wept openly.
"My grandmother had a lot of years left in her life,'' Gargano
told Turnbach. "She was a very active, strong woman, and I wish my second daughter was able to meet her.''
Gargano said she was pregnant with her second daughter when her grandmother was murdered, and she nearly went into early labor because of the shock of the crime.
Another granddaughter, DeAnne Fischbach, told Turnbach her grandmother will not have the opportunity to see her grandson, Fischbach's son, grow up.
Fischbach said she can no longer enjoy a night by a fireplace because of the violent images that go through her mind when she thinks of a fireplace poker or bellows.
She said her grandmoth
er suffered because
of her compassion.
"She wa
s trying to be nice by giving him a drink of water and letting him in to use the bathroom, and he turns around and does this awful thing to her,'' Fischbach said. "He needs to stay in jail forever.''
When asked by Turnbach if he had anything to say before he was sentenced, Bridge stared blankly and barely shook his head.
His atto
rney, Deputy Assistant Public Defender Philip Pagano, asked Turnbach to impose a 30-year sentence. He said Bridge was born to a 15-year-old mother and was in and out of psychiatric hospitals for most of his life.
At age 8, Bridge began to smoke marijuana, Pagano said. By age 13, he was drinking and taking Ecstasy pills, Pagano said.
DeLigny said it was Bridge's choice to use drugs. The psychiatric treatment was needed, DeLigny said, because of Bridge's violent tendencies. In fact, a psychiatric report on Bridge noted that his thoughts of murder, sexual assault
and dismemberment were
of "significant c
oncern'' and tha
t he "does not show remorse'' for the murder, DeLigny said.
"He is a threat, a danger,'' DeLigny said. "He should not be amongst the rest of society.''
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A...7/NEWS/60107001
