Authorities say a Sotheby’s realtor was killed with a baseball bat at their home in a gated neighborhood in NJ. Her stepson has been charged with the brutal murder.
Irma Daniels, who was 48 years old, was found dead in her three-bedroom, $864,000 Cresskill home. Investigators said that she died because of a blow to the head.
Police say that John Daniels Jr., who is 30 years old and the son of her husband, killed her.
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s office said that at 6:46 p.m. on Wednesday, police found Daniels’s body on Stonegate Trail in Cresskill after getting a 911 call.
Prosecutors say Daniels ran away, but he was caught on Thursday, a day after the disturbing finding.
The younger Daniels was put into the Bergen County Jail on Thursday and charged with murder, making it hard to catch him, and having weapons without a permit.
One of the suspect’s neighbors said he was acting strangely.
“He was running all over the place, from one door to the next. Not running to get in shape. “He wouldn’t look at me in the eyes,” a neighbor who didn’t want to be named said.
“I saw him walking back and forth in front of someone else’s house one day. He looked like he was going in a circle, angry and upset. He seemed to be crazy. And I thought, “Someone is going to report this guy to the police.”
The victim was from Moscow, Russia. On August 15, she shared a heartbreaking post on her Facebook page that showed beautiful video of her home country.
“Returning to my roots. My beautiful home country, with the beautiful Caucasus Mountains, ancient culture, heartbreaking past, and graceful and noble people. She wrote that she was proud to be Circassian.
The Facebook page also said that Daniels had been married since 2011 and worked as a Realtor sales assistant at Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty.
In March, she made a big deal about getting a Circle of Excellence award from the company after seven years in the real estate business.
“I did…When I think back to when I started this new journey, I will never forget how hard the first two years were. I had no deals, no clients, and no help or guidance from the place where I started. I felt like giving up. I went through a lot to get to where I am now. Everything came to me because I kept trying, worked hard, learned from my mistakes, was clever, and most importantly, didn’t give up.
Irma Daniels died in a nice townhouse that looked a lot like the ones she sold for a living. This was very strange.
The accused killer appears to have been out of work.
Daniels got his MBA from the Boston College Carroll School of Management in May 2022. His LinkedIn and Facebook pages say that he worked for Benzel-Busch Motor Car for a year as a marketing manager.
Cresskill is 16 miles from Manhattan and is home to about 9,000 people.
