NJ man arrested in deadly attack on sleeping kids/Osvaldo Rivera was found hiding between a mattress and a bedroom wall Sunday afternoon inside a Camden apartment and was charged Monday with murder and attempted murder

By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI | Associated Press – 2 hrs 20 mins ago
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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A man high on PCP-laced marijuana stabbed two neighborhood children in their home while they slept, killing a 6-year-old boy and critically wounding his 12-year-old sister, authorities said.

Osvaldo Rivera was found hiding between a mattress and a bedroom wall Sunday afternoon inside a Camden apartment and was charged Monday with murder and attempted murder, said Jason Laughlin, a spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor's office.

The attack was the second recent one in Camden, an impoverished city across the river from Philadelphia, involving a child and a suspect said to be high on PCP and marijuana.

Rivera, 31, was being held in jail awaiting arraignment, which Laughlin said will likely be held Tuesday. Laughlin didn't know if Rivera had an attorney.

Police found blood-stained sneakers inside the apartment where Rivera was arrested that matched bloody footprints in the home where Dominick Andujor was stabbed to death, Laughlin said. The boy's 12-year-old sister had her throat slit while she slept in the same room. She remained hospitalized Monday at Cooper University Hospital in Camden. The hospital, though, has declined to discuss her condition, citing privacy reasons.

While being questioned by investigators, Rivera said he had smoked a combination of marijuana and the hallucinogenic drug PCP before the attack, Laughlin said.

On Aug. 22, 33-year-old Chevonne Thomas of Camden allegedly decapitated her 2-year-old toddler and then fatally stabbed herself after smoking a similar combination, known as "wet."

Laughlin said there have been several other murders in recent years in which PCP-laced marijuana has apparently played a role. He said the drug combination makes people incoherent, hallucinatory and, in some cases, violent, adding that authorities plan to take steps to curb the drug's market.

The children stabbed Sunday were being watched by a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. The teen, who was unharmed, was caring for them because their mother recently underwent surgery and was still in the hospital.

Laughlin said the 12-year-old, whose name wasn't released, fled the home after the attack and was found at a neighbor's home a few doors down. Police soon went to the girl's home and were met by another child who ran outside, screaming for help for her brother. The 6-year-old boy was found lying on the floor.

While Rivera was still being sought on Sunday, a woman who lives nearby said he was well-known around the neighborhood and seemed to be a peaceful person. He also was often seen playing with the local children.

"People would never think he would do something like this," Nakyta McCray said.

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Osvaldo Rivera arrested in connection with throat-slashing murder of 6-year-old Camden boy

Published: Monday, September 03, 2012, 12:25 PM Updated: Monday, September 03, 2012, 6:23 PM

By Melissa DiPento/Gloucester County Times

CAMDEN–Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk and Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson reported that a city man has been charged in connection with the killing of a six-year-old boy Sunday morning.

Osvaldo Rivera, 31, of Camden, was arrested Sunday afternoon and charged with murder and attempted murder. He is being held at the Camden County Jail. An arraignment is expected to be held Tuesday.

Rivera is accused of killing one child and injuring another in their home in the pre-dawn hours Sunday.

Six-year-old Dominick Andujar was found dead with his throat slit in his home on the 900 block of Ware Street at about 2 a.m. Sunday. His 12-year-old sister also suffered stab wounds and is in critical condition at Cooper Hospital in Camden.

According to the probable cause statement issued by this office, the 12-year-old fled the home after the attack and was found at a neighbor’s home a few doors from her own. The 12-year-old girl identified her attacker as what sounded like “Poppy.”

Police responded to that residence. While there, another child residing at the home on Ware Street, who was not injured, ran outsise screaming for help for her brother. Dominick was found lying on the floor in the home.
Interviews led investigators to learn that Rivera lived in the area and went by the nickname “Popeye.”

Rivera was known to spend nights at an apartment on the 3200 block of River Road. Police found him there at about 4 p.m. Sunday hiding between a mattress and a bedroom wall. Police also found blood-stained sneakers that matched bloody footprints in the home on Ware Street.

Charges were filed against Rivera about 2 a.m. Monday morning.

“Several citizens came forward and showed the courage to provide information, which helped lead to the initial apprehension,” said Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Lieutenant Frank Falco, who oversees the investigators in the office’s homicide unit. “Also deserving of credit are homicide detectives from our office and Camden who worked around the clock and Camden’s SWAT team, which arrested the individual at the residence on 32nd Street and River Avenue.”

During an interview with Prosecutor’s Office investigators, Rivera stated he had smoked “wet” a combination of marijuana and PCP, prior to the killing. This marks the second time there appears to be a connection between this drug and the slaying of a child.

Chevonne Thomas is believed to have been smoking wet prior to beheading her son Zahree on Aug. 22 in Camden. In recent years, there have been several other murders in which wet appeared to have played a part.
This drug has a particularly catastrophic effect on people, making them incoherent, hallucinatory and, in some cases, violent. The prosecutor’s office and the Camden Police Department said they are concerned about its use in the city and will be taking steps to curb the market for this exceedingly dangerous and destructive drug.

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A 31-year-old Camden man accused of stabbing to death a 6-year-old boy and critically injuring his 12-year-old sister was arraigned Tuesday on murder and attempted murder charges.

Camden Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Brown set bail at $5 million for Osvaldo Rivera, who lives down the street from where the children were attacked.

Rivera kept his head down and cried as the charges were read. He barely spoke during the bail hearing, answering, "No, sir," when Brown asked whether he wanted to comment on his bail.

A man identified as the victims' father visibly shook as Rivera was led into the courtroom. Another family member had to be led outside when he tried to yell something as Rivera was being led away.

Dominick Andujor, 6, and his sister were in an upstairs bedroom in their home on Ware Street when the attack took place Sunday, police said. Also in the house were two other sisters, ages 14 and 9. They were not harmed.

The 14-year-old was watching the other children because their mother was in Cooper University Hospital, recovering from surgery she had Saturday, neighbors said.

Shortly after 2 a.m., police said, Rivera got inside the house and slashed the throats of the boy and the 12-year-old. The girl, bleeding heavily, ran from the house to a neighbor's door.

The 12-year-old had surgery at Cooper University Hospital, and authorities said they were optimistic she would survive.

According to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, Rivera told investigators that he had smoked "wet," a combination of marijuana and PCP that has been known to lead to vivid hallucinations and bursts of violence.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that PCP has been linked to a gruesome death of a child in Camden.

Chevonne Thomas, charged Aug. 22 with beheading her 2-year-old son, Zahree, is believed to have smoked the drug before killing her son and committing suicide.

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Osvaldo Rivera Charged As Police Analyze 'Wet' PCP In New Jersey That Led To Death Of 2 Children

By KATIE ZEZIMA AND PATRICK WALTERS 09/05/12 10:13 AM ET

CAMDEN, N.J. — Authorities are trying to determine if a contaminated batch of PCP is going around Camden after a child was decapitated and two other children's throats were slashed by people believed to be on the illegal drug.

They've begun analyzing batches of so-called "wet" circulating in the southern New Jersey city, a locale that continually ranks as one of the nation's most dangerous.

"Is there some type of alteration that's being done that has triggered this?" Police Chief J. Scott Thomson asked in light of the gruesome attacks on children. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration is working with the police department, Thomson said.

A 6-year-old boy was killed Sunday trying to save his 12-year-old sister when they were assaulted in their home. Both were asleep when someone cut his throat then attacked his sister, police said.

A man known in the neighborhood, Oswaldo Rivera, has been charged, and police say he admitted he smoked "wet," a combination of PCP and marijuana, in the hours before the attack.

Almost two weeks earlier, a woman decapitated her child then killed herself, police say. Preliminary tests show she had PCP in her system and police believe she also smoked "wet."

The police chief said PCP has played a role in 10 homicides in Camden in the last four or five years. The drug sells for about $10 a vial.

While it is not new to the area, emergency room doctors say they have seen an increasing number of patients on the drug in the past few years. Users can fall anywhere on a spectrum from agitated and aggressive to sleepy and incoherent, but are rarely aggressively violent.

Dr. Al Sacchetti, chief of emergency services at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, said doctors treat at least one or two people each day on PCP.

Sacchetti said PCP users tend to engage in "non-specific aggressive behavior" and are often more of a danger to themselves than to others. PCP users are mostly vocally aggressive, Sacchetti said.

"These tragedies, the last couple of cases, are very unusual for what we're used to seeing," Sacchetti said. "Usually people hallucinate, but they're not that focused. You have to be very focused to cut someone's head off or find someone and slit their throat."

Dr. Matthew Salzman, an emergency room doctor and toxicologist at Cooper University Hospital, said he has never heard of anyone on PCP harming someone. But the drug does break down the connection between the mind and body, he said, leading to "yelling, thrashing and flailing," as well as incoherent speech.

"For all intents and purposes, it's almost like they're psychotic," Salzman said.

Rivera, 31, sobbed during a court appearance Tuesday in which bail was set at $5 million.

During an interrogation, Rivera had asked: "How bad did I hurt them?" assistant prosecutor Christine Shah said during the hearing.

Authorities interviewed the 12-year-old girl, whose windpipe had been slashed but whose condition was upgraded from critical to stable. She ran out of the house and sought help after her brother intervened.

Rivera, who did not enter a plea, is charged with murder and attempted murder, but prosecutors said more charges will be filed. Authorities said he had a drug arrest in 2009 but no other convictions. He did not yet have an attorney Tuesday.

The Associated Press is not naming the slain 6-year-old to avoid identifying his sister, who says she also was raped by the attacker.

The 12-year-old was able to help police track down the attacker by identifying him as what sounded like "Poppy." Investigators learned Rivera was known by the nickname "Popeye" and had spent nights at an apartment in the area of the city.

Police found him hiding between a mattress and bedroom wall in the apartment. They said they also found blood-stained sneakers that matched bloody footprints in the home where the children were assaulted.

The children were being watched by a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. The teen, who was unharmed, was caring for them because their mother recently underwent surgery and was in the hospital.

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Mom of slain Camden, N.J. 6-year-old: ’My son was a fighter’

By The Associated Press
on November 26, 2012 at 12:32 PM

A 6-year-old boy was trying to save his sister from an intruder when he was killed this year, the child’s family says.

Dominick Andujar stayed up until after midnight on Sept. 2 with his mother and three older sisters to sing “Happy Birthday,” to his sister Amber as she turned 12 — a tradition for the Camden family.

But his mother, Debbie Burgos, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that instead of putting the children to bed, she had to go to a hospital because of sharp pain in her kidneys, organs that had given her problems before.

In their first media interview, the family described what happened next.

Amber said she went downstairs to sleep on the sofa and wait for her mother. She said she also chained the front door.

But moments later, a man with a knife was inside the house. “When I was getting attacked, I heard (Dominick) screaming and I looked and somehow I got away,” Amber said.

As Dominick struggled with the man, Amber fled to a neighbor’s house.

When 14-year-old Tiarra came downstairs, she found her little brother dead on the floor. Her sister was outside screaming and waiting for an ambulance.

Meanwhile, their mother was leaving Virtua hospital when she received a mysterious phone call: “Your son’s neck just got sliced.”

She drove to Cooper University Hospital to learn Amber was in critical condition and Dominick was dead.

“My son was a fighter,” she said of Dominick, whose twin brother died at birth. “From what I saw on him, his marks, he had to be fighting.”

Later that day, 31-year-old Osvaldo Rivera was arrested and charged with murder.

Police said he’d been smoking “wet,” or marijuana laced with PCP.

Just weeks earlier, a woman in Camden who’d been using the same drug decapitated her 2-year-old son then killed herself.

The two horrific crimes brought national attention to the city’s violent year. By Monday, there had been 60 homicides in a city of 77,000 people — the most ever in Camden.

As for the Burgos-Andujar family, the recovery is going on.

Amber is receiving physical and psychological therapy and being home-schooled. Her two sisters, including 9-year-old Amy, are back in school. The family is still heartbroken.

“Behind my smile, behind my kindness, I’m like torn apart,” Debbie Burgos, 34, said. “I got to be strong for my daughters because they need me.”

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March 08, 2013

A man accused of killing a 6-year-old boy and sexually assaulting the boy's sister in September faces new charges in the molestation of a toddler in the same South Camden neighborhood.

Osvaldo Rivera, 32, of River Avenue in Camden, twice victimized children in the neighborhood, where he was known as "Popeye" and was friendly with neighbors.

On Tuesday, officials charged him with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child in an attack on a 2-year-old in August, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Lab results connected Rivera and DNA taken from the victims, Laughlin said. Investigators have looked at other crimes in the area but have not linked any to Rivera.

"We certainly would be interested in hearing from other people who may have concerns or whose children may have had interaction with this person," Laughlin said.

Authorities said investigators noticed similarities between the assault on the toddler and the attacks on the boy and his 12-year-old sister.

They put a rush on the DNA comparisons, which recently indicated that the attacks were carried out by the same person, Laughlin said.

On Aug. 13, Rivera allegedly was in the home of the toddler where the assault took place. Laughlin said relatives caring for the boy did not know about the assault until a day later, when he was seen by a doctor.

It was unclear why Rivera was in the house, but authorities said he knew the family.

Less than a month later, on Sept. 2, Dominick Andujar, 6, suffered a fatal neck wound that authorities said he received trying to protect his sister from Rivera in their Ware Street home. The girl was critically injured. Two other children in the house were not harmed.

Rivera was charged with murder, attempted murder, and sexual assault.

Rivera, who had been convicted of a drug charge stemming from 2006, had been required to submit a DNA sample for the national crime database.

Because there has been a backlog of cases, Rivera did not emerge as a suspect in the August case until after the two other children were attacked, authorities said.

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HORRIFIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!