A 'GRAVE' CRIME
Charge: Man used cemetery as his dump
Friday, July 20, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A Jersey City man with a heart of stone has been charged with desecrating century-old graves by pouring paint over tombstones and dumping construction debris on them, officials said.

Edward J. Delosh, 43, of Lexington Avenue, was arrested Tuesday and cited by the Jersey City Incinerator Authority with illegal dumping in Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery on Garfield Avenue, reports said.

Police charged him with being a fugitive from justice because he has several outstanding warrants for his arrest, including a driving while intoxicated charge in Pennsylvania, said Mary E. Spinello, who is a JCIA deputy executive director/administrator.

"It's doubly offensive, because this is sacred ground and there are some lines you do not cross," said Spinello, who is also a city councilwoman.

On May 24 cemetery workers saw the debris and called police, who found paperwork in it that led them to a home on Country Village Road, reports said.

The residents said a man who identified himself as "Ed" pulled up with a truck full of garbage and asked them if they had anything they wanted to get rid of, reports said.

He charged them $60, telling them he had a place to dump it and was "registered."

The trail went cold until recently when the homeowner called JCIA Director of Environmental Compliance Thomas Harrison and said the truck had been around the neighborhood again and a neighbor had gotten the plate number.

On Tuesday at 2:50 p.m., JCIA worker Martin Valenti spotted the truck at Johnston and Cornelison avenues and called police, who arrested Delosh, reports said.

The debris was dumped in an area of the cemetery where people were last buried in the late 1800s and early 1900s, said Diane S. Smyczynski, cemetery executive director. Green paint is still splattered on the grave marker of James Morey, who was born Aug. 3, 1851 and died Dec. 9, 1908.

Smyczynski said the area is largely unvisited and she hasn't tried to contact relatives of the deceased and doesn't know if there are any to contact. Cleaning up the debris allegedly dumped by Delosh cost the cemetery about $3,000 - for a garbage container and labor costs, she said.

Delosh has two prior convictions for theft by deception and one for possession of drug paraphernalia, a spokesman for Police Director Sam Jefferson said. He also has drivers licenses issued by both New Jersey and Florida, which is illegal, and both are suspended, the spokesman said.

The director said dumping in the cemetery was done in waves, including a spate of roofing debris dumps, and a series of plumbing material dumps that including bathtubs. After the debris was allegedly unloaded by Delosh, someone dumped a truck load of dirt on some graves from the 1940s and 1950s.

Yesterday, cemetery workers found items from an apparent religious ritual, including a dead chicken.

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Ex-mayor is buried there
Friday, July 20, 2007

Jersey City's first African-American mayor, Glenn D. Cunningham, was buried in the cemetery on June 1, 2004, following a three-hour service at the Jersey City Armory.

The 60-year-old Cunningham, who was also a state senator, was pronounced dead at Greenville Hospital on May 25, 2004 after suffering a massive heart attack.

Cunningham's grave is in a section of the cemetery on the other side of Garfield Avenue from the site of the illegal dumping.

MICHAELANGELO CONTE

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Murder site nearby
Friday, July 20, 2007

Homicide detectives are making a renewed plea for help finding the killer of an 18-year-old Jersey City woman whose body was found beneath a pile of rocks a short distance from the illegal dumping site.

Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said investigators have isolated a DNA sample found during the investigation of the murder of Catrina Hinton, 18, whose body was found on Feb. 6 last year 2006, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said yesterday. Police have been unable to find a match for the DNA so far, DeFazio said.

Hinton was last seen on Jan. 14 last year 2006 after leaving her job at a Bayonne clothing store, DeFazio said. She was either beaten or kicked to death, authorities said.

Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office's Homicide Squad at (201) 915-1345.

MICHAELANGELO CONTE