Woman Was Allegedly Photographed While Dismembering Murder Victim’s Body

A newly released court document revealed disturbing details about a string of crimes that ended in a standoff at a New Jersey home earlier this month, including that one woman involved took photos with a man’s dismembered corpse.

Elizabeth C. Mascarelli, 29, was charged on July 13 with offenses including hindering apprehension and desecration of human remains, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said. Mascarelli allegedly helped Maxwell Johnston, 35, hide for several days inside the Toms River, New Jersey home where she was living, after Johnson killed his girlfriend, 25-year-old Gabriella Caroleo, HuffPost previously reported.

Mascarelli was arrested after a July 5 police standoff, along with three alleged accomplices: Danielle Bolstad, 42, Jared Krysiak, 34, and Jarred Palumbo, 36. Johnston killed himself before he could be taken into custody, authorities said.

As authorities investigated Caroleo’s death, they discovered the remains of another person in a separate home in Jackson ― 56-year-old Kerry Rollason, who owned the home Johnson was hiding in. Rollason’s body had been dismembered and stuffed into bags.

A forensic search of Mascarelli’s phone revealed photographs of her and Johnston next to a “clearly deceased” Rollason, whose legs had been amputated, according to the newly released arrest affidavit. The picture shows Mascarelli holding a hatchet in the body’s chest, per the affidavit.

Additional images discovered during the search show Mascarelli, Johnston, and Bolstad in a wooded area. In one, Johnston holds a large ax and an “active” burn barrel is seen behind him, according to the affidavit. An unspecified item with possible bloodstains can be seen protruding from the barrel.

Palumbo told detectives that he was in the basement of Rollason’s home on July 3 with Krysiak when he heard three gunshots coming from outside, according to the affidavit. Johnston came into the basement shortly after, telling the two they needed to leave the house immediately.

Upon leaving the basement, Palumbo saw that Rollason was dead, according to the affidavit. Krysiak, Palumbo, Bolstad, Mascarelli and Johnston allegedly left the home, only to return shortly afterward to take care of the body.

Palumbo said Johnston, Mascarelli and Krysiaki cut off Rollason’s limbs and then asked him to bring “several bags” up from the basement and load them into Bolstad’s car, according to the affidavit.

The medical examiner said Rollason’s body was dismembered into eight separate pieces, according to the affidavit. His cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma.

Bolstad traveled to the area of a house in Jackson, New Jersey, on the day Rollason was killed, according to phone data cited in the affidavit. Authorities who searched that house found a burn barrel near the property and gloves similar to those worn by Mascarelli and Johnston in the photos, according to the affidavit. The barrel was stained with human blood, and a knife was inside it.

A search of the area found a number of body parts in black bags and wrapped in blankets, several 9mm rounds, a saw and the hatchet Mascarelli was seen holding in the photographs, according to the affidavit.

Prosecutors said at a hearing on Wednesday that Johnston had been a member of the Bloods street gang, but did not specify a specific motive for her alleged involvement in Rollason’s death. Mascarelli’s public defender claimed she had a history of addiction and was afraid of Johnson, and Bolstad’s defender said she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to NJPatch.