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Roberto Ubiera, 59, of Newark, handcuffed 55-year-old Tarlok Singh and isolated him in a bathroom of the neighborhood grocery store on North Park Street, in the early morning hours of Aug. 16, 2018, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens, II, said.
Ibiera stabbed Singh twice in the back, before cutting his throat twice with a knife and leaving him to bleed to death on the floor of the small bathroom with his hands still cuffed behind his back, authorities said.
The victim worked at the store seven days a week and had been there for six years.
Ubiera was seen in the store by customers who came in during the crime and he attempted to pretend to be working there, but the customers recognized that something was amiss, according to Stephens.
Ubiera fled the scene after a customer, who had seen Singh there, earlier returned and called out for Singh. The customer discovered him in the bathroom as Ubiera fled, police said.
Following a trial before Superior Court Judge Christopher S. Romanyshyn, Ubiera was found guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, robbery, felony murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. The weapon was a knife.
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