PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release on July 14, 2005

Contact: William J. Smith (718) 556-7150

DISTRICT ATTORNEY DONOVAN ANNOUNCES
2nd DEGREE MURDER INDICTMENT IN 1992 HOMICIDE
***James Russell, 37, Indicted for April ’92 Murder of Willowbrook Man***

STATEN ISLAND, NY – Richmond County District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan, Jr. announced today the unsealing of an indictment of James Russell, (DOB: 3/28/1968) of Keiber Court in Staten Island, on one count of 2nd Degree Murder, for the April 1992 murder of Joshua Stulick, then aged 19, of Parkview Loop, also on Staten Island. The indictment was voted by a Staten Island Grand Jury on Wednesday. The defendant, a resident of Livermore Avenue in Westerleigh at the time of the murder, was arrested on a warrant at Staten Island University Hospital yesterday afternoon.

“My office is committed to the premise that you will not escape prosecution due to the passage of time, especially in crimes such as murder, where there is no statute of limitations,” stated District Attorney Donovan. “I am confident that this prosecution will follow the successful course set last year by our convictions of Andre Rand for a 1981 kidnapping and Wayne Decker for a 1987 murder.”

The murder is alleged to have occurred between the evening of April 26, 1992 and approximately 7:00 PM on April 28, 1992. The victim’s body was discovered wrapped in the interior lining of an automobile trunk under a pile of brush within the confines of Ingram Park (a/k/a “Purdy Woods”) in the Westerleigh section of the borough. The trunk lining is believed to be from a 1986 Pontiac Grand Am operated by the defendant and registered to his mother. The cause of death was a slash wound on the victim’s throat.

Assistant District Attorneys Wanda DeOliveira and Mario Mattei, Chief of the Investigations Bureau will be prosecuting the case.

James Russell was arraigned today in State Supreme Court in St. George before Judge Leonard Rienzi and entered a plea of not guilty. He was represented at the proceeding by Louis Diamond, Esq. The defendant was remanded into custody and is due back in court on October 7, 2005.

The charge of Murder in the 2nd degree carries a top penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

The public is reminded than an indictment is merely an accusation, and that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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