FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) - A grand jury has returned an indictment against a teenager charged earlier in the shooting deaths of his parents, sister and a family friend two years ago in a New Jersey shore town, prosecutors said Monday.
The Monmouth County prosecutor’s office said now-18-year-old Scott Kologi is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and a weapons offense in the slayings at the family’s Long Branch home on the last day of 2017.
Kologi was 16 when 42-year-old Steven Kologi and 44-year-old Linda Kologi were killed in their Long Branch home along with their 18-year-old daughter, Brittany, and 70-year-old Mary Schulz. Authorities say the defendant’s brother and grandfather and another friend were in the house at the time of the shooting but escaped unharmed.
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Authorities haven’t disclosed a possible motive for the slayings.
A judge last year approved prosecutors’ request to move the case from family court to adult court. Defense attorneys sought in December to have Kologi transferred to a psychiatric facility, but a judge ordered him to remain behind bars pending trial.
Defense attorney Richard Lomurro said Monday he plans to enter a not guilty plea at his client’s scheduled Jan. 27 arraignment. He said he would also continue efforts to have him transferred to a psychiatric hospital pending trial. Previous examinations, he said, had detailed his client’s mental issues including a history of hallucinations, autism and “distorted thinking.”
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