Post by Scumhunter on Dec 27, 2015 12:32:36 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: dailyrecord.com)
From pix11.com:
ROXBURY TOWNSHIP - The sign outside the tiny restaurant on Route 46 West in Roxbury Township, New Jersey says “The New Kenvil Diner”—a nod to new owners running the operation.
But the three sons of Chafic “Steve” Ezzedine, who opened the business with his wife in 1983, don’t want anyone to forget the hard-working man who poured his heart into the family-run establishment.
“It was 70, 80, 90 hour weeks,” recalled Ezzedine’s middle son, Samer. “The restaurant was kind of the family’s life blood. In his DNA.”
Steve Ezzedine was 70 years old, when his wife, Amal, found him lifeless—and full of blood—in the cooking area of the diner on May 28, 2011.
It was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and Amal Ezzedine had left her husband to attend evening Mass, while he was supposed to close up the diner around 2 pm.
When Ezzedine didn’t return home, his wife went back to the restaurant about 6:30 pm.
“I saw the car still there,” Amal Ezzedine recalled.
“I went inside. The door was open. I ran to the back. I saw blood all over. I came back to the cooking area; I saw him there, with all the blood all over. By the cash register. Everywhere.”
A phone receiver was on the floor. Amal Ezzedine used it and called 911.
Morris County prosecutors have never publicly revealed the exact cause of Steve Ezzedine’s death.
They don’t want to steer potential witnesses in any particular direction.
But they DO want Mr. Ezzedine’s impressive story told.
Chafic Ezzedine was born in the small town of Abadieh, Lebanon—in the mountains east of Beirut.
Ezzedine went to a four year university and was working with Middle East Airlines.
He was very into fitness, and friends used to call him Steve Reeves, the man who was “Mr. Universe” at the time.
The nickname, Steve, stuck.
Steve’s family were members of the Druze religion.
Steve fell in love with a beautiful, young woman named Amal, who was Catholic.
They wanted to be together—but didn’t think it would be possible in their homeland.
“We didn’t want to create any problems over there,” Amal recalled, “the family was very strict.”
So Steve Ezzedine emigrated to the United States in 1971, and Amal followed him a year later in 1972.
He was working in diners and staying, at times, in motels.
The couple married at a City Hall in New Jersey.
They opened the Kenvil Diner in 1983.
The Ezzedines had three sons, and all of them have memories from the restaurant.
“I would like going to the diner, when it was slow, so my dad and I could do a crossword puzzle,” Walid Ezzedine tearfully remembered.
Samer Ezzedine got emotional recalling a poem his father wrote for him, when his dad left him $5.00 from the tooth fairy.
His mother was at a PTA conference, so his father took over the duties.
Samer Ezzedine now has the envelope framed at his office in Boston.
All three sons attended prestigious, American universities—and Samer was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study finance in Hong Kong.
In October 2010, Steve Ezzedine’s three sons surprised him at the diner with a visit from his first granddaughter—who had traveled with Steve’s oldest son, Said, from California.
Steve was turning 70, and the entire family wanted to celebrate with him.
In May 2011, Samer Ezzedine got married at Boston’s Public Library, and his parents joined all the relatives at the reception.
On Sunday, May 29th, Samer and his wife were landing at the airport, after returning from a honeymoon in Paris and the Greek Islands, when he started getting some troubling texts.
“I had gotten a bunch of text messages, cryptic text messages. I called my older brother, and he told me.”
Walid Ezzedine was driving on a road in California and remembered pulling over—to take a call from his oldest brother.
“And he told me, ‘They killed Daddy.’”
Police and prosecutors still don’t know who “they” are—but in the first month after Ezzedine’s death, they put out a surveillance image showing a dark-skinned man wearing a dark sweater, a white shirt, tan pants—and carrying a light-colored backpack.
The backpack stood out.
The man with the backpack is also seen in a surveillance tape from Kelly’s Market, a liquor and soda store that’s just over a mile west from the Kenvil Diner on Route 46. He was walking around for about ten minutes the afternoon of Ezzedine’s murder.
Two years later, prosecutors released a surveillance tape from a New Jersey gas station, showing a thin man in tan shorts walking near the gas tank. He was near a dark-colored Toyota.
“Any tip is a good tip,” said Matthew Troiano, Supervising Assistant Prosecutor in Morris County.
Regarding potential witnesses, Troiano said, “I don’t want them to have tunnel vision toward one thing over another.”
The Ezzedine family and Morris County Crimestoppers have joined forces to raise $25,000 in reward money for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the Ezzedine case.
Anyone who has a tip can call the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit at (973) 285-6200 or contact www.morrisprosecutor.org.
You can also contact the Roxbury Police Department at 973-448-2090.
The Crimestoppers number is 973-COP-CALL.
The crime continues to haunt Amal Ezzedine and her three sons, who still remember the strong devotion husband and wife had to each other.
“I never saw people so committed to each other,” Walid Ezzedine remembered. “It’s been an inspiration for all of us…how much they loved each other.”
Thoughts? The reason I have Ezzeddine's murder in the unsolved on tv section is it was profiled on the syndicated crime show "Crime Watch Daily." (Note: Besides the numbers above, you can also submit a tip on this case on crimewatchdaily.com) No motive is known, and the focus is on two persons of interest seen on surveillance around the time of Ezzeddine's murder. One is grainy gas station footage and another is a man seen walking around with a backpack. (The latter there's a better photo of but I'll post both below- the Crime Watch Daily segment which I'll also post also shows both men).
(Pictured: Above: Top: Person of Interest #1. Bottom: Person of Interest #2)
Link to "Crime Watch Daily Segment": crimewatchdaily.com/videos/0-aqoik46p/
Other Relevant Links:
pix11.com/2015/06/30/three-sons-seek-killer-of-new-jersey-diner-owner/
newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/05/28/morris-county-police-release-pictures-of-persons-of-interest-in-murder-of-kenvil-diner-owner/
www.morrisprosecutor.org/unsolved.asp
Admin Note: If you have any news-related updates on this case, please contact us here: amwfans.com/thread/1662/website-contact-form
