Crime & Safety

Rally Planned In Unsolved Teaneck Murder

Group wants special prosecutor appointed in murder of Elm Avenue man.

Friends and family of slain Teaneck resident Robert Cantor plan to rally Wednesday morning outside the Bergen County Justice Center in Hackensack and are calling for a special prosecutor to take over the investigation into the nearly year-old unsolved killing.

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office has made missteps in the case and has been hostile toward a group concerned about the progress of the investigation, according to a statement released by the Committee for Justice for Robert Cantor.

The rally outside the courthouse is scheduled for 9:30 a.m.

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The committee asked Gov. Chris Christie for a meeting about the case last year, but state officials ultimately referred family members back to the county prosecutor's office. 

“To tell our group of family members, close friends and professionals that the Attorney General carefully reviewed our correspondence and then to recommend that close family members contact the entity that is the source of our dissatisfaction can only be described as very disappointing and insulting,” the committee wrote in a letter to Christie this month. "The Committee will not let the memory of Robert Cantor disappear without receiving justice."

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An official with the Attorney General’s Office told the group that authorities could not share information about the case, according to a letter sent to the committee last month.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli has released few details in the case and has criticized Jay Salpeter, a private investigator hired to look into Cantor’s death, for his public comments about a person of interest in the case.

Salpeter, a retired New York City homicide detective, has said the killing was sparked by a dispute between Cantor and another man. He has also established a tipline seeking information in the case. 

Cantor was after a fire swept through his Elm Avenue home.

The killing, one of two unsolved murders since August 2010, has left many Teaneck residents on edge and frustrated with the progress of the investigations, which are both being handled by the county prosecutor’s office.

Alpine Drive resident to death after a fire. That case also remains unsolved. Few details have been released and no suspects named.

Molinelli held a in Teaneck about the murders, which he has said . He has not confirmed a motive in either case or said if investigators have any suspects, but has stressed his office has a strong record of solving cold cases. 


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