Killer convicted in brutal hammer death in Hopewell
TRENTON >> The man who brutally hammered Laura M. Perez to death inside his Hopewell Township household last year has been convicted on all counts.
A trial jury on Tuesday found 55-year-old Brian Sheppard guilty of murder, weapons offenses and eluding for slaying the Trenton woman in cold blood and fleeing from the scene. He could potentially serve the rest of his life behind bars.
“Obviously satisfied with the verdict,” Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Grillo said Tuesday in an interview. “I believe it was a reflection of some strong evidence that was the product of a really thorough investigation by the Mercer County Homicide Task Force.”
Sheppard viciously attacked Perez with a hammer on April 25, 2017, and then fled in a vehicle that belonged to his landlord. Police later found the victim’s lifeless body inside Sheppard’s bedroom on the 400 block of Washington Crossing-Pennington Road in the Titusville section of Hopewell Township.
Hamilton Police located Sheppard’s getaway vehicle two days after the murder, and Sheppard led cops on a high-speed chase that rumbled through Lawrence and West Windsor townships. Hamilton Officer Brian Mandelko arrested Sheppard on April 28, 2017, for eluding in a motor vehicle, and then Mercer County Homicide Task Force Detective Scott Peterson re-arrested Sheppard on May 8, 2017, when authorities developed probable cause linking Sheppard to the homicide.
Perez, 37, died in an “extremely violent” manner that the medical examiner said was “by far the most violent blunt force trauma death she had ever seen,” according to Grillo. He said the connection between the victim and defendant — whether they were acquaintances, romantically involved or total strangers to each other — remains “totally unknown.”
Sheppard has been jailed without bail since his arrest. He was represented by public defender Malaeika Montgomery and took his case to trial hoping to get acquitted. The jury, however, convicted him on all counts as the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Sheppard fled in his landlord’s vehicle after killing Perez in a deadly hammer attack to the head.
“No matter how strong the evidence is,” Grillo said, “you have to rely on 12 people all agreeing unanimously on someone’s guilt, which is never an easy task, but overall satisfied with the outcome” of Sheppard facing 30 years to life in prison as a convicted murderer.
Sheppard lived in a Hopewell Township household owned by Anthony Olswfski, 49, who died in May 2017 from fall injuries in Newark. His accidental death was unrelated to the homicide.
The state initially accused Sheppard of stealing Olswfski’s vehicle, but Olswfski’s untimely death caused the state to back down from prosecuting Sheppard on receiving stolen property charges.
“We didn’t present those charges (to a grand jury) because the landlord and the vehicle’s owner, he died two weeks after
the murder,” Grillo said of Olswfski. “We didn’t have the victim, so we didn’t pursue the theft charges without the victim to confirm he did not give permission for the defendant to take the vehicle.”
A grand jury handed up an indictment on July 19, 2017, charging Sheppard with one count of first-degree purposeful murder, one count of third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, one count of fourthdegree unlawful possession of a weapon, and two counts of second-degree eluding from police in a motor vehicle.
A trial jury of Sheppard’s peers found him guilty on all five counts Tuesday after lengthy deliberations ended with the unanimous decision. The jury initially reported being at an impasse, but Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Bingham II urged the jurors to continue with deliberations until deciding Sheppard’s fate.
Sheppard will be sentenced in the near future to a long term of incarceration.