Dad murders mom during scheduled custody exchange; he "exploded" because she wanted to move away (Mays Landing, New Jersey)

Dad LOUIS CERESA has been convicted of killing his ex-wife, the mother of his five children, during a scheduled custody exchange. Dad "exploded" when Mom said she wanted to move away. She was strangled to death in front of their 11-year-old son.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic/article_f0c0f0da-a462-11de-87cb-001cc4c002e0.html

Northfield man gets 15 years for killing mother of his five children
Story By LYNDA COHEN Staff Writer
Posted: Friday, September 18, 2009

MAYS LANDING - Friday used to be the day Louis Ceresa took his five children out for pizza.

But this Friday, instead of picking them up, the Northfield man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing their mother.

Ceresa admitted in July that he strangled Amanda Carmen, 34, while the two sat in her minivan outside his Revere Avenue home during a scheduled custody exchange Jan. 11.

Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury called the plea agreement's recommended 15-year sentence "lenient," but said that Ceresa's willingness to admit his guilt spared his children from a painful trial and his eldest from having to testify in court.

The couple's 11-year-old son witnessed the killing.

"I can't tell you what I did that night or why I did it," Ceresa, 33, told the judge Friday. "I don't know what happened."

When he pleaded to aggravated manslaughter in July, Ceresa said "I exploded" after Carmen told him she was moving away with their children.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," he said at the time.

"To lose a child, at any age, from illness or accident is horrific," Carmen's mother, Margaret, said in a statement read in court by victim counselor Trisha Hayek. "But to lose her because someone was angry and just 'didn't mean to kill her' is unbearable."

Now, Carmen's children will not have their mother with them for all the important things in life, she said: "What Louis did will have an effect on our family not just now, but also for generations to come."

"I have no excuse for what I did," Ceresa said.

He apologized to his children - who were not in court - as well as the dozen family members there to support him. He also apologized to the Carmens, explaining, "they were my family for many years."

And once again, as he had when he pleaded, Ceresa professed his love for Carmen.

"Louis claims he loved Amanda," Margaret Carmen wrote. "How do you put your hands around the throat of someone you love and watch them take their last breath of life? How is his defense, 'I didn't mean to'?"

But defense attorney Anthony Previti said the killing was an anomaly, and Ceresa is a good man who has shown consistent remorse since the killing.

Previti said Ceresa asked that nothing positive be said about him in court, "but I am compelled to say it."

"I don't feel like a good person," Ceresa said. "I do feel rotten. I do feel like crap, and I should. I'll make sure I come down on myself for the rest of my life."

For at least the next 12 years, that life will be in prison. He must serve 85 percent of the imposed sentence before he is eligible for parole.

By that time, the victim's mother said, the children "will have the time to grow up and understand the situation and how they feel about it."

She said she would like to see Ceresa spend the rest of his life in jail, but the family accepted the plea deal to spare her 11-year-old grandson "the agony of having seen his mother strangled to death by his father and then have to testify and put his father in prison."

It is more time than the nine years Millville police Sgt. Robert Vanaman received after admitting during jury selection for his murder trial in March that he killed his wife and tried to cover up the crime in 2006.

In August, DeLury sentenced Rosina McKinnie to nine years in prison under a plea agreement in which she admitted to fatally stabbing her live-in boyfriend Aramis Smith during a 2008 party at the couple's Pleasantville home. There was a history of domestic violence against McKinnie in that case.

Previti told DeLury on Friday how the judge often said domestic violence cases are one step away from homicide. But in this case, "there was no warning," Previti said.

Police had not broken up fights between the two. Ceresa had no criminal background.

"I don't believe he's even had a parking ticket," Previti said.

But there was daily alcohol consumption and a history of cocaine use, DeLury pointed out.

"This defendant was not entirely a law-abiding person, as evidence by his frequent (drug) abuse."

Ceresa relinquished his parental rights. The children, ages 5 to 11, now live with their maternal grandmother in Egg Harbor Township.

"I lost my children. I lost Amanda. I lost everything over something stupid," Ceresa told the judge. "When I die, I'll pay for this again. I'll be judged again."