2 Pizza Delivery Men Are Lured to House, Then Slain; 2 Teens Held

Two teenagers “looking for a victim” lured two pizza delivery men to an abandoned house and killed them in a bloody ambush, authorities said Monday.

The 18- and 17-year-old boys are accused of phoning four pizza parlors before they found one that would deliver to the remote, rural house.

When the delivery men drove up Saturday night and lowered the car window to hand out the pizza, the teens ambushed them, police said.

“I don’t know what they had on their minds,” said Police Chief Pete Vahaly.

Said Sussex County prosecutor Dennis O’Leary: “They were looking for a victim.”

O’Leary said robbery wasn’t a motive.

“It’s usually the case that even in horrible murders there is a more definable reason than there seems to be in this case. That’s chilling.”

After the men were shot in their car, they were dragged out, placed face down on the ground and shot in the head, said Bill Geffken, chief of detectives for the Sussex County prosecutor’s office.

Georgio Gallara, 24, who owns Tony’s Pizza and Pasta in neighboring Hardyston, and his employee, Jeremy Giordano, 22, were killed. At least eight shots were fired.

Police were called to the abandoned house by somebody who saw the car and thought there had been an accident.

The teenagers were arrested early Monday at their homes after calls to pizza parlors were traced to a phone booth outside a doughnut shop, where witnesses remembered seeing them, Geffken said.

The 18-year-old, Thomas J. Koskovich, was charged with two counts of murder and weapons violations.

The 17-year-old was held on juvenile charges. Both pleaded not guilty Monday and remained in custody.