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Defense attorney Aidan O’Connor asked a judge in Hackensack yesterday to order officials to give Mark J. Spatucci three hours a day three times a week in the jail library so that his client can review “extensive DVD evidence.”
Superior Court Judge James J. Guida refused to sign an order but said he would contact jail officials to “see what can be worked out.”
Spatucci, 24, is charged with murder and related counts in the brutal October 2013 killing of Mary Greff.
A 12-count indictment returned by a grand jury in Hackensack in late April accuses Spatucci of burglary and child endangement offenses in addition to seven first-degree murder- and sex assault-related counts. He remained held today on $2 million bail in the Bergen County Jail.
Prosecutors said Spatucci climbed through a second-floor window into Greff’s parents’ home while they were sleeping, got into an argument with her and either strangled or suffocated her before leaving the way he came in.
Asleep in another room was their son – named Mark, like his father and paternal grandfather.
Leon and Carol Ann Greff called authorities after they found the body of their daughter, who turned 23 two days before she was killed. A graduate of Midland Park High School, Spatucci became an immediate suspect. He was found in Midland Park, taken in for questioning and later charged.
Authorities said he washed the clothes he was wearing at the time of the crimes and deleted text messages between him and Greff. Semen samples recovered from two bodily cavities returned positive results against him, they said.
The felony murder charge stems from Spatucci allegedly sneaking into the home through the window, which under the law is a burglary. A killing committed during the commission of another felony gives rise to the additional count.
STORY / PHOTO: Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia
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