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Jamil Hubbard, 30, of Sayreville was sentenced Tuesday April 25 in the death of 56-year-old Jerry Wolkowitz, according to Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago.
At approximately 7:15 a.m. on Tuesday, May 1, 2018, members of the Freehold Township Police Department and other first responders rushed to the Chesterfield Apartments on Harding Road on a report of a physical altercation involving a person struck by a vehicle. At that location they found Wolkowitz in the apartment complex’s parking lot, having sustained severe injuries to his head, abdomen, and back. Wolkowitz was subsequently transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center for emergency treatment.
Missing from the parking lot was Wolkowitz’s vehicle, a Kia Forte, which Hubbard was later found to have stolen. Hubbard then led police on a pursuit, refusing to obey commands to pull over, until it was terminated due to high speeds and out of concern for public safety. Minutes later, the Kia was found abandoned on Bordentown Avenue in Sayreville, and Hubbard was arrested by members of the Sayreville Police Department without incident at his home in the nearby Winding Wood Apartments.
An investigation revealed that Hubbard was in the area that morning because he had slept in his vehicle overnight, having engaged in an argument with his ex-girlfriend, a resident of the apartment complex.
When he woke up, he told investigators, he spotted Wolkowitz walking nearby and decided to try to kill him because he was white, initially attacking him from behind with punches and kicks before stealing his wallet and car keys. He also told investigators he dragged the victim into the parking lot and ran him over with the defendant’s car.
Wolkowitz, a longtime member of the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad and a freelance photographer, remained hospitalized in a coma until he died due to his injuries on Oct. 18, 2018.
A jury convicted him of murder, bias Intimidation, eluding, theft, motor vehicle theft and weapons offenses.
A judge ordered that Hubbard serve a life term for the murder conviction, 25 years for the bias conviction, and 10 years for the eluding conviction, with all three terms to run consecutively to each other.
“Racism has no place in our community," Santiago said. "The evidence demonstrated this brutal attack was a targeted one, based on race, and such abhorrent behavior cannot be tolerated."
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