TOMS RIVER – A Keansburg man has been charged with murder in connection with the death of a Seaside Heights woman who was found with severe head injuries, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced.
Authorities said 41-year-old Emiliano Davila was charged November 6 with the murder of 32-year-old Mary O’Connor, who died at Community Medical Center in Toms River after being assaulted at a Seaside Heights motel.
On November 3, Toms River police responded to Community Medical Center after O’Connor was brought in by two men who left before police arrived. Investigators said she was unresponsive and suffering from a brain bleed and injuries consistent with strangulation.
Detectives from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit and Seaside Heights Police determined that Davila was among the men who dropped O’Connor off at the hospital. Further investigation revealed the pair had been in a dating relationship and that Davila had attacked her the night before.
Davila was arrested later that day by detectives with the Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics Strike Force and Brick Township Police and was initially charged with domestic violence aggravated assault by strangulation. He was lodged in the Ocean County Jail pending a detention hearing.
O’Connor died two days later, on November 5. A post-mortem examination by the Ocean County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head resulting in a subdural hematoma, and the manner of death was ruled homicide.
The charge against Davila was subsequently upgraded to murder.
Prosecutor Billhimer credited the coordinated efforts of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, Narcotics Strike Force, Seaside Heights Police Department, Toms River Police Department, Brick Police Department, Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, and the Ocean County Medical Examiner’s Office for their work on the case.
