2014 Top Morris Headlines: Snow, deaths, animal antics, memories of a miracle & more
A biting-cold winter with near-record snowfall was experienced by all in Morris County in 2014 and tragic deaths that resonated throughout the community hit several families.
A high school senior stirred up an international debate when she left home and sued her parents for support and college tuition costs. An unsuccessful search took place at Lake Hopatcong for some creature — a boa constrictor or anaconda — while bears, coyotes, horses and even a yak amused or terrorized residents.
Below are 10 major news events that kept people talking in 2014.
RACHEL CANNING SUES PARENTS FOR COLLEGE COSTS ONLY TO MAKE AMENDS WITH THEM AND RETURN HOME TO LINCOLN PARK
Claiming her parents forced her to move out of their Lincoln Park home in November 2013, Morris Catholic High School senior Rachel Canning in February sued her parents in Superior Court, Morristown, for $654 in weekly child support and for her upcoming college tuition costs.
The story — reported first by the Daily Record — went viral, attracting the attention of news outlets around the world, including in the United Kingdom and Japan, and generating debate on whether Canning had a case or was a spoiled woman manipulating her parents. Parents Sean and Elizabeth Canning, contending their daughter voluntarily moved out because she didn't want to follow household rules, argued that Rachel had emancipated herself and they bore no responsibility for support or college.
Within a few weeks and before a trial on the lawsuit could occur, Rachel reconciled with her parents and moved back to their home after a nearly-five-month separation. She later formally withdrew her lawsuit.
EYE-SAVING MIRACLE CREDITED TO MORRIS TOWNSHIP NUN, WHO WAS BEATIFIED IN OCTOBER FOR THE DEED
At the age of 8 in October 1963, Michael Mencer was given a memento of Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, a Sister of Charity in Convent Station who died in 1927.
Almost immediately, the boy who had juvenile macular degeneration, could see.
The Vatican determined in December 2013 that what happened to Mencer, now 58, was a bona fide miracle through the soul of the nun. Because of the deed, Sister Miriam Teresa earned the Roman Catholic status of Blessed. Her beatification, the first to happen on American soil, was celebrated Oct. 4 at Sacred Heart Basilica in Newark at a Mass officiated by Cardinal Angelo Amato of Rome.
Mencer, who now lives in Nebraska, was given the memento — a strand of the nun's hair — by his third-grade teacher in Teaneck in 1963.
"I was given that hair and I looked at it," Mencer told a Daily Record writer. "Think about that: I only had peripheral vision. Most people can't see a piece of hair if they don't have central vision. This happened after my third-grade teacher, Sister Augusta, handed me the memento and the prayer card. I remember looking at her sideways. She handed me the prayer card, and I started walking home alone."
Mencer, who had been preparing for complete blindness and was studying Braille, was cured somewhere between school and home. After the cure, his vision was 20/20.
LONG HILL TOWNSHIP RESIDENT DAVID BIRD, A WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER, HUSBAND AND FATHER, MISSING SINCE JAN. 11.
David Bird, a Wall Street Journal reporter and married father of two, left his Millington home for a walk around 4 p.m. on Jan 11 and never returned. Intensive searches of the area have not revealed a trace of his whereabouts or fate.
He was 55 when last seen and his wife, Nancy Bird, recently wished her husband a happy 56th birthday on the family's fundraiser page.
"I wish this update was good news," Nancy Bird said, "But instead it is a reminder of the good man he is and that he is still missing on his birthday."
David Bird also was the recipient of a liver transplant and regularly participated in events for the NJ Sharing Network, a nonprofit organization responsible for the recovery and placement of donated organs and tissue for New Jersey residents. He regularly took long walks, besides being an avid cyclist with his wife, and had gone for his walk on Jan. 11 without taking necessary medication.
RETIRED MORRIS COUNTY CLERK JOAN BRAMHALL AND HER HUSBAND JOHN FOUND DEAD IN THEIR DENVILLE HOME; DEATHS CLASSIFIED AS MURDER FOR JOAN BRAMHALL AND SUICIDE FOR HER SPOUSE
Shock waves went through the county when Joan Bramhall, who retired in December 2013 after a longtime career as county clerk, was shot to death on Aug. 7 by her husband, John, who took his own life at their Denville home.
A family member had said the couple, married for 54 years, was experiencing a great deal of stress and John Bramhall — and also friends — believed that his wife was exhibiting signs of dementia. Joan Bramhall was 78; her spouse was 76.
Gov. Chris Christie, who served with Joan Bramhall on the Morris County Freeholder Board in the 1990s, said in a statement: "Joan Bramhall was an outstanding public servant but an even better person. She was an extraordinarily selfless and generous person to friends and family alike."
Ann Grossi, who succeeded Bramhall as county clerk, said of the tragedy: "It's shocking because everyone loved Joan. She was a sweet, intelligent woman with a certain aura about her." Grossi had noted that Joan Bramhall was a dynamic political leader — county Republican chairwoman, a freeholder and county clerk — and that she stepped into the political arena at a time when few women were active.
RELENTLESS SNOW, COLD, AND COLLAPSED ROOFS
The winter of 2013-2014 — which had a statewide average snowfall of 54.3 inches — was the 7th snowiest on record in the past 120 years. Some of the heaviest snowfalls were in Mine Hill and Rockaway Township, which saw 65.6 inches and 60.9 inches, respectively, between October and mid-February.
The weight collapsed roofs. On one February day alone, Morristown's fire department responded to a roof collapse on a vacant, two-story building and on a Spring Street building. In Rockaway Borough in February, a night shift machinist narrowly avoided being trapped when the roof caved in on a commercial structure housing E&J Machine & Tool and Triangle Automatic.
One bright spot to the weather woes: A Dover Department of Public Works employee plowing snow in a town parking lot found a digital camera and T-shirt from a Billy Joel concert that was dropped by its owner in the lot.
TRENCH COLLAPSE IN BOONTON TOWNSHIP CLAIMS LIVES OF TWO LANDSCAPERS
A trench collapse at a Rockaway Valley Road home in Boonton Township killed two landscapers on Oct. 1, with a massive rescue mission undertaken to try to save the men's lives.
Oscar Portillo, 46, and Selvin Zelaya, 39, employees of the Boonton Township-based Bednar Landscape Services, were two of four men working in the approximately 10-foot-deep ditch installing a French drain pipe when the walls collapsed about 3:45 p.m.
One of the two became trapped and the other jumped in to try and save him; both Portillo and Zelaya were soon under about 10 feet of dirt. A third man was not injured and a fourth managed to escape as the wall collapsed, according to Police Chief Paul Fortunato.
The men who escaped the collapse tried to get their co-workers out but were not successful, Fortunato said. They called 911 and dozens of fire, rescue and police personnel and vehicles responded.
Rescue workers couldn't proceed until the site was deemed structurally safe and the walls had to be shored up with braces so that rescue workers could go in and get the victims out. The collapse is being investigated by the federal Occupational, Safety and Health Administration.
ANIMALS RUN AMOK, KILL, PERPLEX AND AMUSE
A reptile specialist, Gerald Andrejcak, spent weeks trying to trap what he believes was an anaconda or large boa constrictor loose in Lake Hopatcong. Andrejcak said he saw a green anaconda swim through his legs on July 17 but he ultimately called off the search after, he says, he received an anonymous threatening message.
"I know what I saw. Everyone can try to discredit me all they want, but I know my snakes," Andrejcak said. "But I wasn't the first person to see the creature and I wasn't the last to see it."
Officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection also went on the lake with the goal of catching what they thought was likely a boa constrictor. But they too, packed up andn announced the rumored reptile didn't exist.
Bears also brawled in the street and one, to beat the heat, took a swim in Lake Parsippany. Two black bears were spotted charging each other and fighting in Rockaway Township and the drama was captured on video and posted to YouTube, where it netted thousands of views.
In August, sightings of a bear walking upright on its hind legs in Jefferson generated buzz on social media, with videos of the bear being heavily shared on Facebook and Twitter, and YouTube. At least three Oak Ridge residents videotaped the upright bear and one said it appeared the creature had injured a foot.
In July, members of Parsippany Rescue and Recovery unit got onto Lake Parsippany in motorboats to chase a swimming bear from the water. In January, a domesticated yak named Bruce — a petting zoo animal at Brookhollow's Barnyard in Boonton Township — was rescued from its plunge into a frigid pond on the property.
On Sept. 21, hiker Darsh Patel, a 22-year-old Rutgers University student, was mauled to death by a 300-pound black bear. Patel had been hiking with four friends in the Apshawa Preserve in West Milford — just outside Morris County — and was stalked and attacked by the bear, which later was shot and killed by authorities as it stood by the victim's body.
Also in the fall, a cyclist and a hiker in Chester Township were approached by a rabid coyote, which wound up being killed with a knife by a man who was jumped and bitten by the animal.
RANDOLPH MOURNS TWO STUDENT DEATHS IN JULY CAR CRASH
Randolph High School classmates Calvin Verduga and Jack Timmerman were killed in a car wreck on July 26 and their friend later accepted responsibility, telling a Family Court judge he was speeding in his Ford Mustang and lost control.
"I'm deeply saddened and devastated by what happened. I'd do anything to change what happened," the 17-year-old driver told state Superior Court Family Division Judge Donald Collester in Morristown.
The teenager pleaded guilty as a juvenile to two counts of death by auto, assault by auto against third passenger Abraham "Abe" Edens, 17, and to the motor vehicle offense of violating the terms of his probationary driver's license by having three nonfamily passengers, instead of one.
The group had been lifting weights together prior to the 1:35 p.m. crash on Ironia Road in Randolph. The driver admitted driving between 19 and 21 mph over the post speed limit and said he tried to control the car when he started veering off the road but accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake.
The teen was ordered to serve probation, lost his driver's license for five years, and has to undergo counseling and a substance abuse evaluation. The victims, both 17, were inseparable best friends and members of the Randolph High School Rams football team.
NOT FORGOTTEN: POLICE STILL TRYING TO LEARN IDENTITY AND CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO NEWBORN'S ABANDONMENT AND DEATH IN MENDHAM TOWNSHIP IN 1984
Results are expected soon from a DNA lab testing tissue samples from Baby Mary, a newborn whose body was found in trash bags in a drainage ditch off Mount Pleasant Road on Christmas Eve 1984.
The person or persons who abandoned the infant were never found. Earlier this year, Chief Steven Crawford reopened the case, launching the most focused effort to solve the case of Baby Mary's death in more than a decade.
The Rev. Mike Drury, pastor of St. Luke's Parish in Long Valley and police, fire and EMS chaplain for Mendham Township, led the annual memorial ceremony on Dec. 20 for the baby girl at St. Joseph's Catholic Church Cemetery in Mendham, where she is buried.
Police consulted Drury, who named the baby after Mary, the Blessed Mother of Jesus, before deciding whether to reopen the case.
"I told them I certainly believe Baby Mary deserves to have some closure," he said.
Preliminary work on tissue samples from the infant's body showed they were worth sending to the lab, Johnson said.
Drury officiated Baby Mary's funeral five years after she was born, when the case was closed the first time and the medical examiner released her body. The Mendham Township Police Department decided to hold a funeral for her, he said.
According to Daily Record accounts from Dec. 27 and 28, 1984, two boys, ages 11 and 12, who were fishing on Christmas Eve in an area off Mount Pleasant Road called Dismal Harmony Park Woodland Lake, came upon the trash bags. Curious, they opened them. Inside they found a Caucasian infant girl who had died of exposure and hypothermia.
At the time, Charles Coe, then chief of investigations for the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, said there was no indication the child was born near the drainage ditch. It appeared she'd been left there, healthy and alive, shortly after her birth.
Also at the time, in an effort to locate the mother, pediatricians in the area were contacted and local hospitals were alerted to be aware of any woman seeking medical attention related to a birth.
"Things have not changed much in 30 years, but we thought, and still think, that the mom had to be a scared teenager who lived in the area," Drury said. "The baby was placed in an isolated area and you had to know exactly where to lay her. She was not in the water. She was laid perfectly on a rock coming out of the water."
TRIAL, SENTENCING CONCLUDE FOR DENVILLE MAN WHO STABBED EX-WIFE TO DEATH
Anthony F. Novellino, 67, was sentenced in September to 50 years in prison for fatally stabbing his former wife 84 times and mocking her by putting a rubber pig mask on her face.
A Morris County jury in July found Novellino guilty of murder, rejecting his claims that his former wife attacked him first with a knife in a bathroom of their Denville home on June 19, 2010. The victim, a 62-year-old Morris Catholic High School languages teacher, had divorced her spouse of 37 years a few weeks earlier.
She believed Anthony Novellino was working his Saturday security guard job, and she was at the home to retrieve items for her new apartment.
The investigation led police to the state of Washington, where Novellino was tracked to a motel room.
While Novellino showed no remorse at sentencing, family members said in a letter read in court: "The defendant worked diligently to humiliate and discredit Judith with his lies and distorted facts. However, she ascended like a rock star, with nine priests concelebrating her funeral Mass and almost 1,000 mourners at her wake. In contrast, the cowardly defendant was found naked in a cheap motel room and will hopefully live out his life in prison."
Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com
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Photos by Bob Karp/Staff Photographer