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Ex-Con Featured On 'America's Most Wanted' Charged With Murder In Jersey Shore Stabbing

Charges have been upgraded to murder for an ex-convict from the Jersey Shore, after a stabbing victim died of brain injuries, authorities said.

Angelo Grenci

Angelo Grenci

Photo Credit: Ocean County Jail

The suspect was once featured on "America's Most Wanted," wrote a book called "Inabsentia," and previously served at least nine years in New Jersey State Prison, according to earlier news accounts.

Angelo Grenci, 44, of Berkeley Township initially was charged with attempted murder on Nov. 17 after a violent fight, according to Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer and Berkeley Township Police Chief Karin DiMichele.

The stabbing victim, 50-year-old Carlton Williams of Seaside Heights, ultimately succumbed to his injuries on Saturday, Billhimer and DiMichele said.

An autopsy by the Ocean County Medical Examiner on Sunday concluded that Williams died from anoxic brain injury, caused by a massive bleed from a stab to the neck, and the manner of death to be homicide.

Berkeley and Toms River police were called to Community Medical Center about 7 p.m. on Saturday, :Nov. 14, where they found Williams stabbed in the neck, authorities said.

Williams was subsequently flown to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.

An investigation found that Grenci had stabbed Williams during a fight near Magnolia Avenue in the Manitou Park section of Berkeley Township, Billhimer and DiMichele.said.

Grenci, who is being held in Ocean County Jail, has served serious prison time before: Grenci was accused of breaking beer bottles over the heads of two men and later trying to run one of them over with a car. He was convicted at a trial he didn't attend in 2003, news reports said.

Grenci remained at large until 2005, when "America's Most Wanted" aired a segment about him. A tip from a viewer led to his arrest in Mexico. He was sentenced to 24 years in state prison, which was reduced upon appeal. 

This subsequent article by the Asbury Park Press reported that Grenci was arrested in connection with a bank robbery in Toms River in November 2015. 

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