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Miodrrag Jecmenica was pronounced dead of a heart attack at 11:14 p.m. yesterday at Palisades General Hospital, said Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli.
“We saw them put him in the ambulance,” a neighbor told CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM. “He looked like he was already gone.”
Sonja Jecmenica-Castillo, who turns 41 a week from tomorrow, is charged with aggravated assault, simple assault and endangerment. Those counts that could be upgraded to manslaughter or possibly murder pending autopsy results, authorities said. For now, she is being held on $100,000 bail at the Bergen County Jail.
Sonja Jecmenica-CastilloThe Jecmenicia house, foreground
Police were called to the house just after 10:30 and found Mio Jecmenica unconscious on a hallway floor, Molinelli said.
He and his daughter had been in some type of argument, the prosecutor said, without elaborating.
Mio and Clara Jecmenica have lived more than 30 years on the first floor of their Cliffside Park home, records show.
Sonja, who graduated from nearby Cliffside Park High School in 1986, lives upstairs with her own daughter. She has a sister who lives in Pennsylvania, locals said.
Neighbors on the hilly street said the elder Jecmenica and his daughter frequently yelled at the local kids, even when they were playing on their own property. Police were called at times to keep the peace, they said.
“It wasn’t just him. It was her, too,” a neighbor said. “I feel bad for Clara. I don’t what she’s going to do now. He did everything for her.”
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