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Jeffrey Daniels, 36, was charged with murder, child endangerment and illegal weapons possession in the slaying of Michelle Boccellari Burns hours earlier in the garden apartment they shared on Knickerbocker Road.
Burns, a 36-year-old mother of three girls, had been stabbed several times in the head and neck, authorities said.
In a bizarre coincidence, a Cresskill mom was also brutally stabbed to death blocks away less than 24 hours earlier.
Dumont police got a 12:20 a.m. call Tuesday of Burns's 5-year-old daughter "wandering unattended" near the victim's apartment off Lexington Avenue, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
Police found the girl in the courtyard.
They also spoke with a woman who said she'd been unable to reach Burns on her cellphone after hearing arguing in the apartment, Musella said.
The woman told police Daniels had knocked on her door while carrying his and Burns's two daughters -- one six months old, the other 18 months -- and asked for a ride.
Police found Burns dead in her apartment.
She'd been stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife, Musella said.
Closter police captured Daniels, a Queens native, a couple of hours later.
The 6-foot-3-inch, 180-pound Daniels wasn't wearing pants or shoes and was carrying the two young girls when he knocked on the door of a Closter resident who immediately called police.
The younger girls were at Hackensack University Medical Center awaiting response from the state Department of Children and Families. The oldest daughter was with family.
Daniels, meanwhile, remained held in the Bergen County Jail pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
The previous overnight, authorities said, a 19-year-old Lodi man killed a mom in her Cresskill home less than a mile from the scene of the Dumont killing.
The slain Cresskill woman's 14-year-old daughter aided the killer in a botched attempt to dispose of the body in Overpeck Creek in Teaneck, they said.
SEE: Lodi Man Charged With Murdering Cresskill Mom, Daughter Charged With Helping Dump Body
The majority of killings in Bergen County for many years have been domestic-related.
The Bergen County Prosecutor's Major Crimes Unit is heading the Dumont investigation, assisted by police from multiple towns -- including Dumont -- as well as Bergen County sheriff's officers, the Bergen County Medical Examiner's Office and the Bergen County Sheriff's Bureau of Criminal Identification, which collected evidence.
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