{"id":8729,"date":"2016-06-14T17:43:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T21:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=8729"},"modified":"2016-06-14T17:43:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T21:43:54","slug":"lakewood-man-charged-with-murder-in-monday-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/06\/lakewood-man-charged-with-murder-in-monday-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakewood Man Charged With Murder in Monday Shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Merrill<\/a>

Merrill Spencer (Photo: Ocean County Jail)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Lakewood man is\u00a0charged with murdering another Lakewood man Monday, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Merrill Spencer, 34, has been charged with\u00a0murdering Johntel Thomas, 23.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019 lifeless body was found Monday morning at 6:32 a.m. on a sidewalk near the intersection of\u00a0Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alder Street, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office. Investigators\u00a0found that\u00a0Thomas had suffered a gunshot wound to his left rib area, killing him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lakewood police, along with detectives from the prosecutor\u2019s office and Ocean County Sheriff\u2019s Department\u00a0conducted a canvas of the area to locate witnesses, Della Fave said.\u00a0Additionally, investigating detectives watched surveillance footage from various surveillance systems in the area.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese and other investigative measures quickly developed information leading detectives to Merrill Spencer and a Lakewood residence he was known to frequent,\u201d said Della Fave.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Detectives kept watch at the suspect\u2019s location while a search warrant was obtained for the residence, authorized by Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels. Spencer was taken into custody at about 10:30 p.m. without incident and charged with murder, possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. His bail has been set at $1 million cash.<\/span><\/p>\n

Authorities did not say what may have been the motive for the shooting.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Lakewood man is\u00a0charged with murdering another Lakewood man Monday, authorities said. Merrill Spencer, 34, has been charged with\u00a0murdering Johntel Thomas, 23. Thomas\u2019 lifeless body was found Monday morning at 6:32 a.m. on a sidewalk near the intersection of\u00a0Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alder Street, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,2249,57,2248,232,1395],"class_list":["post-8729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-johntel-thomas","tag-lakewood","tag-merrill-spencer","tag-murder","tag-shooting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/spencer.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2gN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}