NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey corrections officer gunned down his older girlfriend and her best friend — saying he killed them because he was mad she wasn’t returning his calls, court documents allege.
“I killed both of them — just arrest me, bro,” suspect John P. Menendez, 23, told police, according to court papers.
Menendez — a Hudson County corrections officer from West New York, N.J. — was charged this week with two counts of murder and weapons offenses in the slayings of his girlfriend, Anna Shpilberg, 40, and Luiza Shinkarevskaya, also 40, Essex County prosecutors said, according to NJ.com.
Police responding to reports of a shooting near Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday first found Shinkarevskaya dead from a bullet to her head on a sidewalk at a Jiffy’s parking lot, authorities said.
A 9mm Glock handgun registered to Menendez was found at the scene, officials said.
Not long after, a bloodied Menendez reportedly approached a Newark police officer and confessed to killing both women.
The women previously lived in Brooklyn, and Shpilberg was a dental hygenist who worked on Staten Island, New York Post reported.
Menendez said he shot his girlfriend, Shpilberg, because he was angry she had been ignoring his calls after going on vacation with Shinkarevskaya, authorities said.
“This is crazy, I can’t believe I did this,” Menendez allegedly told the officer.
He then directed the officer to Shpilberg’s nearby Mercedes-Benz C300, where she was found dead in the passenger seat with a gunshot wound to the head, around Newark Penn Station, authorities said.
According to the affidavit, Menendez later admitted to the homicides.
“He said he lost it and killed them,” an officer wrote.
A witness told police the women were arriving on a flight at the airport Tuesday and that Menendez was scheduled to pick them up, court documents show.
“[The witness] said Menendez was upset about his girlfriend going on vacation,” the affidavit reads.
Shpilberg lived in Randolph and Shinkarevskaya in Riverdale, Morris County. They came to the U.S. as children from their native Ukraine, friends told NJ.com.
Her former fiancé, Fabian Goni, told NJ.com that Menendez regularly demanded she “report to him” on her whereabouts.
“He wanted texts and videos as proof of where she was,” Goni said.
Menendez remained held without bond Friday at the Essex County Jail.
Shpilberg is survived by a son.
