Slaying Victim Taped Pleadings With Her Killer
Before she was smothered by a teenage carjacker, Kathleen Weinstein used a miniature cassette player to secretly record herself pleading for her life, authorities said Tuesday.
“Don’t you understand what kind of trouble you are going to get in? Don’t you think they’re going to find you?” Weinstein asked the boy who abducted her from a shopping plaza last Thursday.
Although it didn’t save Weinstein, the dramatic 24-minute recording helped authorities identify a suspect. A 17-year-old, identified by authorities as M. L. of Berkeley Township, was charged Tuesday with murder and carjacking.
The tape contained the youth’s first name, his age and details about his past, prosecutor Daniel Carluccio said. He would not elaborate.
Carluccio said he would seek to have the suspect tried as an adult. “On the tape, Mrs. Weinstein valiantly and persistently used every skill and power she had to convince her attacker to simply take her car and not her life,” Carluccio said.
Weinstein, 45, was a teacher of disabled children.
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