53°
Clarence S. Stokes, 42, apparently had come to see Stanley Gunter and Latrice Avery on Wednesday evening to discuss living in a room in their Fairmount Avenue home.
An argument over what would be the terms of his stay erupted before turning deadly, an investigator with knowledge of the incident told Daily Voice.
Police responding to a 911 call captured Stokes after they found him "walking down the street with blood on his clothing," Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
They then found Avery, 44, who'd been stabbed repeatedly, on the porch of her home. She was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 9:13 p.m.
The body of her fiancé, a 67-year-old U.S. Navy veteran, was on the living room floor upstairs. He'd been stabbed in the torso and was pronounced dead at the scene, responders said.
Avery, who was originally from Paterson, owned the home four doors down from Fairmount Elementary School where she lived with Gunter, an Englewood native.
Stokes, whose most recent addresses were in Paterson and Clifton, has a criminal past that has included prison time. Records show convictions dating back nearly 20 years for burglary, drug possession and criminal sexual contact.
He was being held Thursday in the Bergen County Jail, charged with two counts each of murder and weapons possession, pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
The homicide squad of the Bergen County prosecutor's Major Crimes Unit was investigating with Hackensack police. The Bergen County Sheriff's Office Bureau of Criminal Identification collected evidence at the home. The county medical examiner also responded.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Paterson and receive free news updates.
