AI Summary
5 min readOn a warm Sunday afternoon in July 2020, Esther Salas, a federal judge in New Jersey, was cleaning the basement with her 20-year-old son Daniel. They had just celebrated his birthday with a socially distant backyard party and a beach trip. Daniel was swinging a wiffle bat when the doorbell rang. He bounded up the stairs to answer it. Then the shots came. Daniel was killed on the front hallway floor. Her husband Mark, a defense attorney, was shot multiple times and barely survived. The killer had disguised himself as a FedEx delivery driver. It would take a second murder, a dead body in a field, and a 1,500-page manifesto before investigators understood why.
The attack and the manhunt
When the first officers arrived, Daniel still had a pulse. Mark was sitting up, talking, trying to tend to his son. But Daniel died at the hospital. Mark was rushed into surgery with a bullet through his liver and intestines. Judge Salas spent the night in a fog of shock and grief, not knowing if she would be planning one funeral or two. "I remember just screaming," she said. "I kept asking, how's my son? Somebody tell me something. And nobody was saying anything."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:56) **A Sunday Afternoon Attack** - The episode opens with the setup: on July 19, 2020, during the pandemic, a man disguised as a FedEx delivery person rings the doorbell of a prominent family in North Brunswick, New Jersey.
- 2 (06:11) **The Initial Response and Investigation** - Police arrive to find a federal judge's home under attack, sparking a massive manhunt for a suspected killer with a possible hit list.
- 3 (09:08) **The Hospital and the Unthinkable News** - Judge Salas learns her son is dead and her husband is in critical surgery, while investigators scramble to get a description from the wounded husband.
- 4 (14:53) **Ruling Out Daniel as a Target** - The FBI interviews Daniel's friends and searches his life, concluding the sweet, selfless 20-year-old had no enemies.
- 5 (18:44) **Turning to Mark and the Judge** - Investigators dig into the cases of Mark Andrell and Judge Salas, looking for anyone with a violent grudge.
- 6 (22:47) **The California Connection** - A detective from San Bernardino calls about a nearly identical murder, linking the New Jersey case to a recent killing 3,000 miles away.
- 7 (26:00) **The Men's Rights Connection** - The investigation reveals both victims were connected to the controversial National Coalition for Men, and the shooter was a member who had been expelled.
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Show Notes
Andrea Canning speaks with U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas about the deadly 2020 shooting at her home that killed her son, Daniel, and critically injured her husband, Mark.
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