Middlesex County man faces murder charge after South Plainfield double stabbing

🔻Stabbing kills man, hurts woman
🔻Man charged with murder, attempted murder
🔻Defendant knew surviving victim, cops say

A 46-year-old Middlesex County man faces murder and other charges after a recent stabbing at a South Plainfield home left one person dead and a woman hurt.

On Thursday, Pablo Cicero, of Edison, was arrested and charged with first-degree counts of murder, attempted murder, and home invasion burglary for the killing of Brandon Andrews-Cruz and for wounding a 32-year-old South Plainfield woman.

Cicero knew the surviving victim through an intimate relationship that she had ended, according to deleted text messages cited in his affidavit of probable cause.

Police report about incident on Tooz Place

Police responded to a 911 call on May 19 just before 2 a.m. at a home on Tooz Place.

The attacker was wearing a ski mask, police said.

Andrews-Cruz, a Raritan resident, was pronounced dead at the scene after having been stabbed repeatedly.

How police identified Pablo Cicero as the suspect

The woman was rushed to a hospital having been stabbed twice. She has since been released, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone said.

License plate readers put Cicero’s blue Mazda 6 in the area of the South Plainfield home just before the stabbings.

Surveillance footage from Cicero’s apartment complex shows what appears to be his Mazda entering a gated area, where he got out and stripped off his pants and shoes, tossing them into a dumpster.

The gate access matched his resident card use, the same affidavit said.

His car was later found in an apartment complex in Linden, and forensic swabs found the presence of at least two types of human blood.

Who is Pablo Cicero? Background and charges

Cicero was also charged with two counts each of third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose,and fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon.

He is married and is not a U.S. citizen, according to jail records.

Cicero was being held at Middlesex County Jail pending a detention hearing.

Anyone with potential information can contact Detective Javier Morillo of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office at 732-745-8843 or Detective Ryan Kirsh of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office at 732-745-3711.

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