The search for two men who shot and killed a Hoboken lawyer during a carjacking outside the Mall at Short Hills on Sunday night intensified yesterday as investigators awaited results of forensics tests that could help identify the assailants and as the reward for information that could lead to an arrest continued to grow.
Police are hoping forensic swabs taken from Dustin Friedland’s 2012 silver Range Rover will lead them to the men who shot the 30-year-old in front of his wife and left him for dead in a parking garage adjacent to the upscale mall, sources told The Star-Ledger.
The results of those tests could be critical, the sources said, because witnesses have offered scant details about the assailants. Surveillance video also has not been able to provide investigators with a description of the suspects, officials said Wednesday.
Police do not know the approximate height or weight of either man and were given no physical description of the suspects, according to the sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
As police continue working to identify the attackers, officials and business leaders from throughout New Jersey pumped an additional $31,000 into the growing reward.
The Taubman company, which owns the Mall at Short Hills, offered an additional $20,000, while the Essex County Sheriff’s CrimeStoppers program upped its reward to $20,000. The Morris County Sheriff’s CrimeStoppers program also offered $1,000, officials said, bringing the total reward to $41,000, as of last night.
After an evening of holiday shopping with his wife, Friedland was getting into the Range Rover, which was in a parking deck outside the mall, when he was approached by two men at about 9 p.m. Sunday, acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray has said. A struggle ensued and Friedland was shot once in the head at close range, sources told The Star-Ledger on Monday.
One of the men then forced Friedland’s wife, Jamie, out of the car at gunpoint, the sources said. She was not injured.
Friedland was taken to Morristown Medical Center where he later died.
Surveillance footage shows the carjackers entering the parking deck in a green sport utility vehicle before the shooting, sources said. After the attack, one assailant left in Friedland’s Range Rover while the other drove the SUV, sources have said.
It remains unclear whether the shooting was captured on video.
Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, declined to comment as did Michael McAvinue, the mall’s general manager.
The stolen Range Rover was found Monday morning near an abandoned home on Renner Avenue in Newark, about 15 miles from the mall. Police were hoping a surveillance camera positioned across the street from the house might have offered a glimpse of the carjackers, but the device was not working, according to the landlord of the building across the street.
As the police search continued yesterday, friends and family prepared to say goodbye to Friedland, a patent attorney and Toms River native who was remembered as a friendly presence around his upscale Hoboken neighborhood. A funeral service will be held this morning at Beth Am Shalom on Route 70 in Lakewood, according to Friedland’s obituary.
In addition to his wife Jamie Schare Friedland, he is survived by his parents, Rose and Wayne Friedland, his brother, Daniel, his sister, Deanna and his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Lombardo. Carmona-Bolen Home for Funerals in Toms River is handling the arrangements.
Mark Schare, the uncle of Friedland’s wife, also spoke out for the first time yesterday, telling the New York Post that the carjackers "should not have a day of peace, ever again."
"I want them dead," Schare told the newspaper. "In a heartbeat, I would like to see them dead because of what they did. And for what? What did they gain? It’s just evil. "
Staff writer Jeff Goldman contributed to this report.
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