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Officer Joseph Cobianchi was on patrol when he saw a woman and two men who “appeared to be shouting” and were “visibly upset” in the parking lot of the Days Inn on Route 23, Detective Capt. Dan Daly said.
As Cobianchi approached, one of the men quickly ducked into the motel, the captain said.
The woman “was crying and had dried blood on her lip,” Daly said.
She told the officer that she was in a room with another woman who “robbed her at knifepoint and struck her in the face with a glass bottle,” he said.
While other officers canvassed the area, Cobianchi searched the alleged victim’s companion, who Daly identified as Frank Mandeville, 30, most recently of Netcong.
Mandeville, who gave police a fake name, was carrying syringes and drug paraphernalia and was wanted for a probation violation out of Sussex County, the captain said.
Meanwhile, Officer Colin Bush detained another man in the nearby Kohl’s parking lot whom the alleged victim said was in the room during the robbery.
That man – identified as Nicholas Aguilar, 25, most recently of Passaic -- was carrying a knife and four heroin folds, Daly said.
Aguilar also was wanted out of Gloucester and Camden counties on theft and child neglect charges, he said.
Police arrested him, as well.
They eventually captured the accused robber – identified as Erin Dockray, 41, most recently of Wanaque – after a township DPW worker alerted officers to her and another man sitting on a curb nearby.
That man turned out to be the one who’d ducked into the motel when the first officer arrived. He was considered a witness and not a suspect, Daly said.
Police arrested Dockray, whose last known address was in Newton, on robbery and drug possession charges.
She, too, was wanted on a warrant, this one out of Sussex County.
She, Mandeville and Aguilar were all sent to the Passaic County Jail to await detention hearings.
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