New Jersey Mom and Her 2 Kids Murdered After Landlord Didn’t Change Locks to Apartment

After being granted a restraining order against her husband, a New Jersey woman “begged” her apartment complex to change the locks on her door.

According to a complaint filed on the family’s behalf, the complex failed to meet her request, and she and her two children were fatally stabbed in their home.

On February 5, 2020, Ruth Esther Reyes de Severino and her two children, Eurianny, 5, and Eury, 2, were murdered.

According to the lawsuit obtained by NBC News, police discovered the bodies in the family’s Penns Grove Gardens condominium after discovering the remains of Reyes de Severino’s husband, Eugenio Severino, in a nearby park.

Eugenio Severino allegedly killed himself after murdering his family, according to the lawsuit.

Wrongful death, carelessness, breach of contract, and negligent hiring are among the claims made in the complaint, which was filed in Salem County Superior Court last month. Penns Grove Gardens, its operator, Housing Management Resources, and Roger J. Gendron, who is listed as a “management member” of Penns Grove Apartments and Penns Grove Gardens, are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Reyes de Severino was granted a restraining order against her husband in January 2020, only weeks before the slayings, forcing him to leave their apartment.

Eugenio Severino allegedly threatened to murder his wife on several occasions, according to the lawsuit.

Due to her spouse still having a set of keys, Reyes de Severino alerted her apartment complex of the restraining order and requested that her locks be changed.

“Ruth Reyes de Severino asked, begged, Defendant Landlord Penns Grove Apartments LLC … to change the locks on the door to her apartment such that her husband could not gain entry,” the lawsuit says.

“Despite Tenant’s fear for her own safety and security, as well as the safety and security of her two small children … Defendant Landlord denied Tenant’s request to change the locks,” it says.

Eugenio Severino allegedly used his keys to enter the apartment on the day of the murders and stabbed his wife and children.

According to Samuel D. Jackson, a lawyer representing Reyes de Severino’s estate, she had made at least five in-person requests for her apartment’s locks to be changed. He claimed she had also told the complex that her husband was a threat to her and her children.

“Women and their children should not have to fear for their lives —or lose them — because their landlords and the parties they contract with fail to keep those women and children safe,” Jackson said in a statement Tuesday.

The lawsuit also claims that the apartment complex violated a Penns Grove ordinance enacted in the aftermath of Tayshon Hayward’s shooting death at the same property in 2019.

To increase safety, the ordinance required all apartment complexes in the municipality to install external security cameras and lights.

“The defendants here didn’t bother to follow a law that was passed to address their own bad behavior after someone else lost their life in similar circumstances at their property less than a year before,” Jackson said.

“The predictable result was an even worse tragedy,” he said. “We hope this lawsuit sends shock waves through the New Jersey landlord community and makes landlords realize the health and safety of their tenants should trump all other considerations — especially profits.”

The estate of Reyes de Severino is seeking damages, including compensatory and punitive damages, as well as other costs.