Man Found Not Guilty Of Murder In Gloucester Twp. Woman's Death

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, NJ — A man charged two years ago in the 2013 death of a Gloucester Township woman has been acquitted of murder.

In May 2023, Joseph Grisoff was charged with murder in the death of Carol Reiff. The charge was dismissed Dec. 19 in Camden County Superior Court.

Reiff, 59, was found dead in June 2013. Her body was discovered in the woods behind her apartment complex's old maintenance building, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

The case remained cold until 2023, when Grisoff was charged with first-degree murder. At the time, authorities claimed that advances in DNA testing allowed them to retest evidence collected at the scene.

But Grisoff's defense argued that the DNA samples were one of 60 samples contaminated by the lab, according to 6abc Action News.

Patch did not immediately receive comment from the prosecutor's office or the state public defender's office, which represented Grisoff.

Before the victim was found dead, Reiff had failed to appear for a scheduled family trip and wasn't answering her phone. On June 21, 2023, Gloucester Township police tried to check on her at the Lakeview Apartment Complex.

Police discovered she wasn't in her apartment. Her keys were inside the unit, and her car was still in the driveway.

Three days later, Reiff's body was discovered in the woods near her apartment complex. After an autopsy, her manner of death remained undetermined because of decomposition.

Grisoff was a maintenance worker who lived near the victim's apartment, prosecutors said. Detectives interviewed him shortly after Reiff's body was found.

He told detectives that he regularly saw the victim outside but had never been inside her apartment.