Bags of body parts found after standoff in NJ homicide investigation

🚨Gabriella Caroleo was found shot to death on June 27

🚨A suspect took his own life on July 5

🚨4 suspects charged and body parts found in bags

The homicide investigation of a woman who was shot to death not far from the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst took a turn with more arrests after body parts were found in garbage bags.

Gabriella Caroleo, 25, of Seaside Heights, was found dead near the intersection of Ridgeway Road (Route 571) and Hope Chapel Road (Route 547) in Manchester on June 27.

Police named Maxwell Johnston, 35, of Manchester, as the suspect in the case. He was on the run for several days until a seven-hour standoff on July 5 at a Ravenswood Drive home in Toms River.

After four people came out of the house, Johnston was found dead in a bedroom with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, according to Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer.

Elizabeth Mascarelli, who had been in the house during the standoff, was hospitalized and later charged with harboring a fugitive after allowing Johnston to stay at the house.

That was not the end of the case.

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Body parts in bags

Investigators said that Mascarelli and three others may have been involved in killing the homeowner, Kerry Rollason, 56, on July 3, two days before the standoff.

Black bags filled with body parts and other evidence were found at a home on Toms River Road in Jackson, according to Billhimer.

A defaced .22 caliber handgun found in the house belongs to Mascarelli, according to Billhimer.  It was used in Rollason's death, the prosecutor said.

Investigators said Danielle Bolstad, 42, of Barnegat, Jared Krysiak, 34, of Brick, and Mascarelli dismembered Rollason's body. They also had help from Jarred Palumbo, 36, of Manchester, to move the body parts to Jackson, investigators said.

Bolstad, Krysiak and Palumbo were charged with hindering apprehension and desecration of human remains.

Krysiak has not been arrested and is considered a fugitive from justice.

Billhimer has not publicly described how the suspects and victims knew each other.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Prosecutor's Office at 732-929-2027 ext. 2476.

EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story should have said that Gabriella Caroleo was fatally shot.

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