Who is John Menendez? New Jersey corrections officer kills girlfriend and her friend for not answering his calls
John Menendez, a 23-year-old corrections officer from New Jersey, admitted to fatally shooting his girlfriend for not picking up his calls, while on vacation with her best friend. The alleged killer did not show any signs of remorse after killing both the women and directly went to the police to confess that he murdered his girlfriend Anna Shpilberg and her friend Luiza Shinkarevskaya.
Menendez, who is a Hudson County corrections officer from West New York, NJ, has been taken into custody and charged with two counts of murder and weapons offenses in the brutal killings, according to court documents.
RELATED ARTICLES
The incident took place on Tuesday, February 16, in Newark. Anna and Luiza had just returned home from their vacation and Menendez arrived at the Newark Airport to pick them up, per the law enforcement authorities. The cops received the reports of a shooting near Newark Liberty International Airport.
Arriving at the scene, Police officials first found the body of Shpilberg’s friend on a sidewalk at a Jiffy’s parking lot. The prosecutors say Luiza was pronounced dead after being fatally shot from a bullet to her head, The New York Post first reported.
A few moments later, they recovered Shpilberg’s body from the passenger seat of her car that was parked close to Newark Penn Station.
Who is John Menendez?
Menendez is a 23-year-old corrections officer who has worked for the Hudson County jail for about a year. He was dating Anna, a 40-year-old resident of Randolph for a while now and everything was going smooth. However, some of Anna’s friends did come out in saying that he was “controlling” and would want proof of where she was.
But there were many who believed that Menendez was an “easy-going” person. A man named Juan Hernandez, who worked at a restaurant that was across the street from Menendez’s apartment, said he never saw him having a problem with anyone, so it comes as a shock that he got arrested for killing someone.
According to court documents obtained by NJ.com, Menendez walked up to a police officer at the scene and said, “I killed both of them. Just arrest me, bro.” The accused did not stop here and admitted that he “can’t believe” that he murdered his girlfriend and her friend for not picking his calls. “This is crazy. I can’t believe, I did this,” Menendez confessed to the officer, as per the affidavit filed in the court.
After further interrogation, it was found that Menendez lost his cool when he found that his girlfriend went out on a vacation without asking him and lost his cool when she won’t even pick his calls. “Both women had just been on vacation and Menendez said that Anna had been ignoring his calls. He said he lost it and killed them. He again said he killed her and her friend,” the law enforcement agency wrote in the court documents.
The accused is imprisoned at Essex County Jail and a court date has not been set, as of now.
Anna Shpilberg and Luiza Shinkarevskaya
Anna, the 40-year-old resident of Randolph, and Luis previously lived in Brooklyn, New York. Anna has a 15-year-old son and worked as a dental hygienist, according to her LinkedIn page. Both women came to the US as children from their birthplace Ukraine.