Uncle, Nephew Indicted In 2019 Roadside Slaying In Howell

HOWELL, NJ - A Lakewood man and his 19-year-old nephew were indicted by a Monmouth County Grand Jury on Tuesday in connection with a 2019 slaying of a New York man on a Howell Township roadway, authorities said.

Omar Rivera-Rojas (also known as Juan Carlos Rivera-Rojas), 31, as well as his nephew Alberto Rojas-Hernandez, also of Lakewood, were indicted for conspiracy to commit murder, murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, unlawful possession of a weapon and tampering with evidence, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said.

On October 18, 2019, the Howell Township Police Department responded to a 9-1-1 report at about 3:46 a.m. of an unconscious male lying in Hurley Pond Road just east of Route 547. Upon officers’ arrival, the male was found lying face down in the roadway.

The man, identified as Domingo Merino-Rafael, 33, also of Lakewood, was found “unresponsive and obviously deceased,” authorities said. He was officially pronounced deceased at 4:12 a.m. by doctors at Newark Beth Israel Hospital.

While the incident was initially investigated as a hit-and-run motor vehicle incident, it was quickly determined that the death was not the result of a hit and run event. Rafael was taken to the Middlesex County Regional Medical Examiner’s Office where a post-mortem examination deemed the cause of death a homicide.

A joint investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and Howell Township Police Department later determined Rivera-Rojas, Rojas-Hernandez and Merino-Rafael traveled from Lakewood to Middlesex County on Oct. 17, 2019. The men were returning to Lakewood in the early morning hours of Oct. 18 when the trio got into an argument that resulted in the uncle and nephew slaying Merino-Rafael.

Rojas-Hernandez is lodged in the Youth Detention Center in North Brunswick where he has been in custody since his arrest in 2019. Rojas-Hernandez - who was just seven months shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the murder - was previously waived to adult court to face the charges alongside his uncle and co-conspirator. Rivera-Rojas has also been detained since his arrest.

If convicted of murder, Rivera-Rojas and Rojas-Hernandez each face a minimum sentence of 30 years in state prison without parole and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, subject to the provisions of the “No Early Release Act” (NERA), which requires them to serve 85 percent of the sentence imposed before becoming eligible for release on parole.

The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Howell Township Police Department credited the Lakewood Police Department and the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office for their assistance during the investigation.