WOMAN, FRIEND FOUND SHOT DEAD IN NEW JERSEY. CORRECTIONAL OFFICER CHARGED WITH THEIR MURDER

A corrections officer in Hudson County is accused of brutally murdering his girlfriend and her friend after they returned from vacation. 

John Menendez, 24, is accused of murdering his girlfriend Anna Shpilberg, 40, and her best friend Luiza Shinkarevskaya, 40, on Feb. 16, according to the Essex County (New Jersey) prosecutor’s office. 

Officials charged Mendez with two counts of murder in connection to the killings.

Shinkarevskaya was found on the sidewalk of a Newark, New Jersey, street around 9:50 p.m., according to prosecutors. Minutes later, Shpilberg was found dead in a vehicle about three miles away. 

The crimes were committed after he picked the pair up from the airport following a vacation they’d gone on, according to NJ Advance Media.

“Both women had just been on vacation and Menendez said that Anna had been ignoring his calls,” police wrote in court records obtained by NJ Advance Media. “He said he lost it and killed them.”

Shpilberg’s ex-fiance Fabian Goni told NJ Advance Media that Menendez was controlling.  

“He wanted texts and videos as proof of where she was,” said Goni.

Shpilberg and Shinkarevskaya had previously lived in Brooklyn, NY. They emigrated to the United States from the Ukraine when they were children, friends told NJ Advance Media. Shpilberg was the mother of a 15-year-old son and worked as a dental hygienist.