A 31-year-old man who is charged with murdering a woman on the Hunterdon County, N.J., estate of former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli was apprehended earlier this week in Upper Black Eddy, Bucks County, according to news reports.
Brandon Petersen of Newton, N.J., is accused of stabbing 38-year-old Michele Carkhuff in the neck while the two were visiting the housekeeper and preparing a meal at Torricelli’s horse farm Sunday.
Torricelli was not at his Delaware Township residence because he was in Florida at the time, according to a NJ.com report published Friday, which says that Carkhuff and Petersen allegedly consumed drugs and were in the home’s kitchen cutting vegetables for a stew when the attack began.
The article cites Torricelli, who told the news outlet that during the attack–when Carkhuff tried to escape in his pickup truck–Petersen allegedly slit her throat.
According to court papers cited in news reports, after leaving the farm Petersen allegedly called a girlfriend from Swamp’s Riverside Garage on River Road in Upper Black Eddy and asked her to pick him up. The business is located on the Pennsylvania side of the bridge that connects Upper Black Eddy with Milford, N.J.
Instead, the woman reportedly contacted law enforcement authorities, and Pennsylvania State Police ultimately took Petersen into custody. As of Friday he was imprisoned in Bucks County, awaiting extradition to New Jersey on a charge of first degree murder.
Investigators have so far not revealed how Peterson and Carkhuff knew each other beyond the information about their acquaintance that is contained in court documents.
According to Sussex County, N.J., court records, in April 2018 Petersen was sentenced to three years in prison for manufacturing or distributing or intending to manufacture or distribute cocaine, with part of that sentence suspended.
In 2008, Petersen was sentenced to 13 years in prison for stabbing a woman during a robbery in which he planned to steal $200 to repay a drug debt, court records show.
Note: Individuals charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This story was compiled using information from police and court documents.
Murder suspect Brandon Petersen, 31, of Newton, N.J., was arrested in Upper Black Eddy, Bucks County, earlier this week.
