TOMS RIVER – A Superior Court judge has ordered a Keansburg man to remain in jail while he awaits trial in the death of a Seaside Heights woman earlier this month, prosecutors said.
Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced that Judge Dina M. Vicari ruled that 41-year-old Emiliano Davila will stay detained at the Ocean County Jail on a murder charge stemming from the death of 32-year-old Mary O’Connor.
Investigators say O’Connor was assaulted in Seaside Heights on November 3 and later hospitalized with severe injuries, including signs of strangulation. She died two days later on November 5.
Davila is also charged with domestic violence aggravated assault by strangulation in connection with the same incident, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The detention request was presented by Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Meghan O’Neill.
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.
