UPDATE (6/12): The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office has released a corrected version of the press release, indicating the original one had “erronously reported the date in which three men were assaulted.”

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—The county’s acting prosecutor Andrew Carey and city police director Anthony Caputo announced yesterday that “a New Brunswick man was arrested and charged with the murder of another city resident and wounding two other men with a broken bottle.”

Ernesto Monroy, a 28-year-old man from New Brunswick, is being held in county jail on $1 million bail at in connection with the murder of a 53-year-old man named Anastacio Hernandez, who passed away on June 8.

The official statement did not indicate when Monroy was taken into custody.

New Brunswick Today previously reported that, according to police radio transmissions, officers arrived to find two victims who had been stabbed, and another who may have been knocked out after being struck by a bottle Saturday night at approximately 8pm near the intersection of Seaman Street and Lee Avenue.

The man believed to be struck be the bottle passed away the following day, according to authorites.

“The cause of death remains under investigation, but preliminary reports indicate Mr. Hernandez had been beaten,” reads the release issued yesterday afternoon by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

That press release had at least one error: It incorrectly stated the attack that fatally wounded Hernandez and sent two other men to the hospital occurred on Friday, June 6.

The attack actually occurred one day later, according to the police transmissions.

Hernandez is the fourth person reported murdered in the Hub City so far this year, exceeding last year’s total of three reported killings in all of 2013.

Monroy was also charged with two counts of aggravated assault for “using the broken bottle to wound a 34-year-old man and a 37-year-old man, both New Brunswick residents,” as well as “unlawful possession of a weapon” and “possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.”

Authorities determined that Monroy assaulted the three men following a party at a home on Seaman Street in New Brunswick.  At least one of the victims was found in the backyard of either 188 or 192 Seaman Street, according to police transmissions.

“They were taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where Mr. Hernandez was pronounced dead at 5:57 p.m. on June 8, 2014,” reads the release, noting that the other two men slashed with the broken bottle were “treated and released.”

The investigation is active and is continuing. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Martinez of the New Brunswick Police Department at (732) 745-5217, or Investigator DiNinno of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office at (732) 745-4194.

Editor at New Brunswick Today | 732-993-9697 | editor@newbrunswicktoday.com | Website

Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.

Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.