A 17-year-old male suspect in Cranford, New Jersey, has been charged with murder after he allegedly ran over two 17-year-old girls, one of whom he allegedly stalked for months, the New York Post reports.
Per the report, Cranford High School students Maria Niotis and Isabella Salas were hit by a 2021 Jeep while they were riding on an ebike on Monday (Sept. 29). The two girls were taken to a nearby hospital, where they were pronounced dead. The 17-year-old boy, who has not yet been named by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder on Wednesday (Oct. 10).
A friend of the two girls, Tammy Carbajal, told CBS 2 that the boy had been stalking one of the girls for several months, which prompted her to file a restraining order against him. “She made complaints and nothing was done,” said Carbajal. “It’s just a tragedy.”
It’s unclear which of the two girls the suspect was allegedly harassing in the lead-up to the fatal hit-and-run. A neighbor also told Fox 5 that the suspect regularly parked outside the house of one of the girls for as long as three months before the murder, and that he was “never stopped.”
Per New Jersey 101.5, the accused killer was active online and regularly streamed from his VinnieBat118 YouTube account. After the hit-and-run, he allegedly streamed himself playing MLB The Show, and addressed the incident, but denied responsibility. He told his viewers there was “more to the story that you are not getting,” and offered his condolences to the two victims.
In his last livestream, which lasted less than two minutes, he was accused of being a killer by multiple people in the chat. At one point, someone posted his full address in the comments, and he abruptly ended the stream. His online presence also showed that he followed Andrew Tate, regularly reposting his content on X, formerly Twitter.
The police chief in Westfield was also forced to release a statement denying speculation that the suspect is his son, as some had suspected on social media.
“While social media has made it known that the accused is related to me, he is not my son and not a member of my immediate family,” said Westfield Chief Christopher Battiloro, referring to rumors that he’s the dad of the suspect after internet sleuths found out the accused’s father is a retired police officer. “I want to be clear, as loud and as firm as possible, that in NO WAY do my wife, children or I condone, defend, or excuse the actions that caused this terrible and tragic loss of life.”
A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to raise money for the funerals of the two girls, already garnering over $130,000 of its $160,000 goal.