Hundreds gather for woman killed in apparent murdersuicide

FREEHOLD, N.J. >> Hundreds of people gathered to mourn a woman found dead in her home earlier in the week in what authorities call an apparent murder-suicide.

Police and Monmouth County prosecutors said 48-year-old Denise Bartone was found dead Monday in her Freehold Township home, and Kenneth Bartone was later found in the Raritan River “dead of an apparent suicide.”

A parish assistant estimated that about 700 people gathered for Saturday’s service at the CoCathedral of St. Robert Bellarmine in Freehold.

Monsignor Sam Sirianni spoke of the Catholic belief in life after death. He told the crowd, which included the couple’s three teenage daughters, that “We believe that on that tragic morning, when Denise entered into the mystery of death and opened her eyes on the other side, she saw the Lord, Jesus.”