Ex-UM student convicted in N.J. N.Y. man dismembered 2 bodies

TOMS RIVER, N.J. – A former nurse who was acquitted years ago of manslaughter in Maine was found guilty of the dismemberment murders of two men whose body parts were dumped along New Jersey highways.

Richard W. Rogers Jr., 55, of Staten Island, N.Y., was convicted Thursday in state Superior Court of murdering Thomas Mulcahy, 56, a married bisexual businessman from Sudbury, Mass., and Anthony Marrero, 44, a gay prostitute from Manhattan.

Rogers, who worked as a surgical nurse for 20 years at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, also was convicted of two counts of hindering his own apprehension by dismembering and disposing of the victims’ bodies.

He faces up to life in prison with a minimum of 30 years without parole on each of the murder counts when he is sentenced Jan. 26. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

“We’re just pleased,” Mulcahy’s widow, Margaret, said after the verdict. “We feel justice has been done.”

Rogers’ attorney, David Ruhnke, plans to appeal. He had argued that prosecutors charged the wrong person. He also had tried to convince the jury that it could not convict Rogers of the crimes because the state had not proved they occurred in New Jersey.

But Judge James Citta ruled that the law allowed the jury to infer that because the bodies were found in New Jersey, the murders occurred in New Jersey.

Investigators never established where the murders occurred.

Mulcahy was in New York on July 7, 1992, for a business meeting and disappeared the next day. One of the last places he was seen was the Townhouse, a gay bar that Rogers was known to frequent.

Mulcahy’s dismembered parts were discovered July 10, 1992, at a state Department of Transportation maintenance yard in Burlington County and in a trash barrel at the Stafford Forge Rest Area on the Garden State Parkway. Sixteen of Rogers’ fingerprints were found on the bags containing Mulcahy’s remains.

Marrero’s dismembered body was found in plastic bags on May 10, 1993, near a road in Manchester. Two of Rogers’ fingerprints and his palm print were on those bags.

The big break in the case came on May 28, 2001, when Maine authorities, who recently had gone online with an automated fingerprint identification system, matched Rogers’ prints to those on the bags that contained Mulcahy and Marrero’s dismembered remains.

His fingerprints were on file in Maine because he had been tried in November 1973 for manslaughter while in graduate school at the University of Maine. Claiming self-defense, Rogers was acquitted in that hammer-beating death.

Rogers, then 22, was studying French at the University of Maine in 1973 when he became a suspect in the death of Frederic A. Spencer, who lived in his apartment building in Orono.

Spencer’s body was found a few days after his death by two bicyclists riding along a deserted road near Old Town.

After his arrest, Rogers told police he caught Spencer in his apartment and that Spencer came at him with a hammer. He said he managed to get the hammer away and beat Spencer until he died.

Six months later, Rogers was acquitted of manslaughter in Penobscot County Superior Court.