Earlier this week, video of an incredibly brutal home invasion perpetrator attacking a woman in front of her three-year-old daughter was released by Millburn, NJ police. Now there's a $20,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
The June 21 attack was caught on the family's nanny cam—the woman had been with her daughter while her baby son was sleeping upstairs (her husband was at work in NYC). The victim, who suffered a concussion, chipped teeth, bruising and cuts after being punched and thrown down a set of stairs, wanted to make the video public in hopes her assailant could be found. A neighbor, who said he had his back door unlocked on the day of the attack, said, "That’s the kind of person she is—she doesn’t want it to happen to anybody else. I hope they catch this guy. I canceled my vacation. I was supposed to leave Thursday.”
Millburn police captain Michael Palardy said, "There was no reason for him to touch her at all because she would have willingly gave him what he wanted. I've probably gone through this video 20 times, and it still sickens me every time I see it. He had no regard for her life. He didn't care if she lived or died." The video shows that the "burglar made three trips upstairs to rifle through the family's belongings, police said, assaulting the woman on the trips back to the first floor, kicking her, punching her and yanking her by the hair."
Other residents in the wealthy suburb were shocked; one woman told the Star-Ledger, "We always felt safe here. My kids walked around at night. We didn’t worry.”
Now NJ lawmakers want to toughen penalties against home invasion robbers. Currently, a home invasion is a third-degree crime; Assemblyman Jon Bramick wants to make it a second-degree. "Criminals could potentially walk away from a home invasion without facing jail time," Bramick said.
