Bail to stay at $1M for convict charged with killing witness

A Gloucester County Superior Court judge today denied a request to lower the $1 million bail set for a convicted murderer who was charged in December with stabbing to death a witness who had testified against him.

Relatives said they did not believe Ramona Johnstone, who authorities said was stabbed 15 times by Richard Santiago, was notified of his release and she had been worried about him. Normally, only victims, not witnesses, are notified of the release of a convict, authorities have said.

Santiago, 55, allegedly stabbed Johnstone, 54, to death on Dec. 17, seven months after he was released from prison. He had served six years for the 2004 stabbing death of Johnstone's boyfriend, 44-year-old Richard King, of Mantua, at the Woodbury complex where both Santiago and Johnstone lived.

Johnstone testified in 2006 that she had been watching a football game on television when a fight broke out between King and Santiago outside her Woodbury apartment. King stumbled back into the apartment, bleeding from stab wounds, and later died.

In a bail hearing today, Superior Court Judge M. Christine Allen-Jackson said the $1 million bail "is an appropriate amount under the facts and circumstances," according to a release from the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office.

Allen-Jackson cited Santiago's prior convictions, which include one in 1973 for larceny and the 2006 conviction for aggravated manslaughter in King's killing.

In an earlier interview with a reporter, Johnstone's sister, Rainy DePaulis, said her sister had been concerned about what might happen when Santiago was released from prison.

"I don't think anyone notified her when he was released," DePaulis said. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said then that only victims and not witnesses are notified of inmate releases and that he was not aware of any expressed threat.

Santiago served his sentence in South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton.

In Monday's hearing, Assistant Prosecutor Laurie Cimino said Johnstone's role as a witness "is the reason he killed her."

Johnstone, who was stabbed 15 times, was found unconscious in the same apartment she was living in at the time of King's death. She was dead by the time she was brought to Underwood-Memorial Hospital.

Cimino said video surveillance from the Woodbury Court Apartments, where Johnstone lives, shows "a person believed to be Santiago" entering her apartment on Dec. 17 carrying a red bag, and later walking on Broad Street in Woodbury.

Santiago's daughter-in-law, who lives in Woodbury, told investigators that he showed up unexpectedly that day, saying he had to a catch an 8 p.m. bus, Cimino said.

A Camden surveillance camera also showed Santiago carrying a red bag the next day. The bag was recovered from a trash container in Camden and is being tested for DNA.

Detectives also learned that he had slept at a Camden residence after the killing. The bedding is also being tested for DNA, authorities said.

In 2006, Santiago was sentenced to a nine-year prison term, but ended up serving six years after he was credited with time he served in jail before the trial.

He remains in state prison on a probation violation before the alleged killing.