South Brunswick Man Gets Retrial In Parents' Killing

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ - A South Brunswick man who was found guilty for strangling his parents to death in 2008 will get a new trial, a New Jersey appellate court ruled Tuesday.

Michael Maltese, 32, will receive a new trial because the Middlesex County Superior Court Judge's instructions to the jury "undermined" Maltese's defense of self-defense, the court ruled.

According to court documents, Maltese killed his parents in their mobile home on Maple Street in the Monmouth Junction Mobile Home Park on Oct. 8, 2008.

He confessed to the murders and was found guilty of manslaughter in his first trial on November 2010. The conviction was however overturned by the New Jersey Supreme Court on August 2015, saying the confession was inadmissible because police secretly recorded one of his conversations to help their investigation.

The court upheld charges of hindering prosecution, theft by unlawful taking, fraudulent use of credit card, tampering with evidence, false swearing and desecration of human remains.

The South Brunswick police fought the overruling. In August 2017 they testified that even without Maltese's confession they would have found the bodies, which implicated him in the murder.

Read More Here: Retrial: South Brunswick Man Found Guilty For Killing His Parents

In his second trial in 2018, Maltese was found guilty for manslaughter and sentenced to prison.

According to court documents Maltese, who was 19 at the time, strangled his father Michael J. Maltese, 58, after an altercation. His mother Kathleen Maltese, 53, tried stopping him but was restrained by her son’s girlfriend, Nicole Taylor.

Maltese then strangling his mother to death as well. He buried their bodies in a shallow grave in Beech Woods Park in South Brunswick.

After strangling and burying his parents, Maltese and Taylor went on a shopping spree using his parents' credit cards. They ran up a $27,000 bill on the cards, purchasing items including DVDs, sporting goods and an engagement ring.

Maltese and his sister reported their parents missing on Oct. 17.

He was arrested following an investigation into the use of his mother’s credit card.

South Brunswick police found the bodies on Oct. 25, less than two miles from their home.

Taylor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Maltese was originally charged with murder, but the jury found him guilty of one count of second-degree passion/provocation manslaughter. He was sentenced to 64 years in prison.

On Tuesday the court ruled that the judge at Maltese’s second trial mistakenly instructed jurors on the law regarding self-defense.