A neighbor of federal Judge Esther Salas — whose 20-year-old son was gunned down by a man disguised as a FedEx driver — said she heard the moment the gunman fired off shots in the New Jersey cul-de-sac.
Jenny Wang, who lives across the street from the family in North Brunswick, said she heard a gunshot around 5 p.m. Sunday.
“But at that time I didn’t realize it was a gunshot,” she said. “It [sounded] like fireworks — pop, pop, pop, and it stopped. And this is a very peaceful community, so I would never think something criminal would happen here.”
She said her husband saw Salas’ husband, Mark Anderl — who was also hurt in the shooting — sitting on his driveway making a phone call.
“He thought it seemed normal enough — maybe someone was playing loud video games inside the house, so [Anderl] had gone outside to make a phone call,” Wang said. “My husband saw the FedEx truck, too, but he didn’t realize. He didn’t pay attention to the plate number.”
“A few minutes later, my husband called me from his car,” she continued. “He said he saw lots of police cars coming toward our street. I looked out my window and I saw all the police cars sitting on the street outside, and an ambulance. I saw two people being put on the ambulances, and only realized later, when I saw the news, that it was the husband and the son.”
Wang said “almost no one” was outside when the shooting occurred because of the steamy summer weather, with temperatures peaking above 90 degrees.
“Otherwise lots of people would have been outside walking their dogs, kids playing,” she said. “It was Sunday afternoon. That’s why no one could imagine this happening.”
Wang called the family “very friendly people.”
Marion Constanza, 76, a neighbor and former criminal defense lawyer whose friendship with Salas and the family began even before they moved onto the block 20 years ago, called them “wonderful, good people.”
“They doted on their son,” Constanza said. “Daniel was their only child, which is just horrible. When he went off to college, she was so depressed. For a week, maybe longer, she was so depressed. He was only going to Washington, DC, but to her, this wasn’t just her firstborn, but her only child going off to college after living in the house for all those years. So I can’t even imagine what this woman is going through now, having lost her only child.”
Constanza called Daniel “a big, big baseball player.”
“He played for Saint Joseph’s [High School] in Metuchen,” she said. “He was a very good-natured boy. He’d always stop the car just to wave hello to me. Not too many young people do that in this day and age. But that’s how courteous and wonderful he was. He was just a caring kid.”
She added that Salas “could do anything.”
“She could cook, she could be a judge, she could do anything,” Constanza said. “Beautiful inside and out. Good people, caring people. I don’t think they had an enemy in the world — well, obviously they did because somebody shot them up.”
Both Constanza and her husband were devastated when they learned what had happened.
“At first, all I knew that Mark was in surgery and I just thought it was suspect — why didn’t we hear anything about Daniel?” she said. “And then, all of a sudden, I heard. All of a sudden I collapsed. I just couldn’t believe it. My husband, who’s 83, just started to cry and I started to cry. I went out into the street to tell the neighbors and I just sat on the sidewalk. I just couldn’t believe it.”