NJ Man Left Girlfriend's Unresponsive Body At Hospital After Attack, Prosecutor Says

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A Monmouth County man is accused of strangling his girlfriend at a Seaside Heights motel then leaving her unresponsive body at a hospital, where she died two days later, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said Friday.

Emiliano Davila, 41, of Keansburg, has been charged with murder in the death of Mary O’Connor, 32, of Seaside Heights, Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said.

Toms River police were called to Community Medical Center on Monday after O'Connor was dropped off there by two men, the prosecutor's office said.

The two men then left. O'Connor was unresponsive, authorities said, and was found to be suffering from a brain bleed and "showed obvious signs of bruising consistent with strangulation."

Investigators determined Davila, who was dating O'Connor, was one of the two men who had left her at the hospital, authorities said. The investigation found Davila had assaulted O'Connor the night before at the Seaside Heights motel where she was living, prosecutors said.

Davila was arrested later on Nov. 3 by detectives from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics Strike Force and Brick Township police and taken to the Ocean County Jail. He initially was charged with domestic violence aggravated assault by way of strangulation, the prosecutor's office said.

O'Connor succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday, and an autopsy by the Ocean County Medical Examiner's Office on Thursday determined the cause of her death was blunt force trauma to the head that caused a subdural hematoma, and the manner of death was homicide, prosecutors said.

Davila was then served with the murder charge at the Ocean County Jail, where he remains pending a detention hearing, prosecutors said.