A man who was accused of the murder of his nine-year-old son died this Friday as a result of injuries he inflicted on himself on the day of the crime.
Manuel Rivera43, was facing criminal proceedings after being accused of killing and burning his son Christian inside a car in New Jersey.
Rivera died Wednesday at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where he had been in custody since Thursday, March 28, when police found his son’s body inside a burned car near War Memorial High School in the community of Sayreville.
That day, at 10:45 pm, the Police received a call about a domestic dispute. The man’s stepdaughter warned that he had left the house with her little brother and that they were both missing, and she accused her stepfather of threatening to kill her son and himself.
At the same time, another call alerted authorities to a fire at Sayreville High School.
Minutes later, officers found Rivera’s Nissan on fire in the school parking lot with his son’s body inside. The child is believed to have been killed before the fire, but it was not revealed how.
The man was outside the car, he had cut his throat and had burns all over his body. He was hospitalized in critical condition.
Authorities later reported that he poured gasoline on the car and set it on fire.
The suspect allegedly acknowledged the crime in a video he sent to his wife minutes earlier, in which he apologized and told her they would see each other in the afterlife, according to police documents obtained by News 12.
He also left a suicide note at her home with the text: “This is how it all ends for me and Christian. I know we couldn’t live without each other. Today is the day I die,” the text said, according to Patch.
The boy was a third grader at Woodrow Wilson School. He was also a member of the Sayreville Bombers youth football team. The little boy received a tribute at the Junior Bombers football field.
Rivera committed the murder-suicide at the same school where he worked as a part-time cook and driver.
It was later learned that the cause of the dispute in the house was his alleged infidelity.
Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone revealed that he was charged with aggravated arson, murder, endangering the welfare of a minor and desecration of human remains.
