NJ courts kept letting him go until mom of 4 was killed in front of her kids

🔻 Lauren Saldana, 38, was strangled to death
🔻 The murder suspect has a long history of violence
🔻 Victim's daughter now pursues justice

Prosecutors and judges kept giving him new chances. And he kept returning to his girlfriend's life.

It was a decades-long cycle of brutal violence and lenient justice that came to a head on Jan. 9 in South Brunswick when Roman Romanovskiy, not for the first time, placed his rage-filled hands around the neck of a woman, police said.

But this time, Lauren Saldana, 38, did not survive. This time, a 5-year-old boy witnessed the homicide of his mother by his father, just steps from his newborn brother.

This time, Romanovskiy, just seven months into a probationary term of four years for a seemingly unprovoked assault on two other people, was accused of the most heinous charge after a life of terrorizing others.

"This isn’t fair and was never supposed to happen," Saldana's oldest child said in a heartbreaking post on Facebook two days after her mother was killed. "I will fight for her memory and make sure justice is served for her 3 sons and myself, no matter what it takes."

Justice and Romanovskiy

Romanovskiy, 41, has a Superior Court criminal record dating back to Dec. 11, 2017, when he was arrested on charges of forcing a girlfriend into a car in an attempt to coerce her into sex. Police later said the woman escaped with bruises on her neck and arms and a busted lip.

He wouldn't be sentenced for that crime for a few more years. In the meantime came more arrests.

About a month later, Romanovskiy was arrested for violating a restraining order by sending the victim texts and voicemails asking her not to show up in court for a restraining order hearing.

A year later on Dec. 17, 2018, in Howell, Romanovskiy punched a woman, injuring her shoulder and back. He even chased her in front of a police officer, according to a criminal complaint obtained by New Jersey 101.5.

The names of the victims are redacted in the documents, so it is unclear whether it was the same victim. But details of his arrest on June 11, 2019, indicate that the victim in that event was Saldana, who had recently given birth to his son.

In the 2019 case, police said Romanovskiy sent the victim degrading text messages and threatened to break the necks of her and her baby, a police report says.

As part of a deal with prosecutors, most of the charges racked up over the three years were downgraded or dismissed. He pleaded guilty to harassment and third-degree criminal restraint and was sentenced in August 2019 to a year of probation. Other than the days he spent in jail after his arrests, he got no additional time behind bars.

His troubles with the law continued.

On Nov. 8, 2022, he was arrested after police in East Windsor said he knocked out a man and punched a woman in the face. The criminal complaint said he appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  In June of last year, as part of a plea deal with Mercer County prosecutors, he was sentenced to four years of probation for third-degree aggravated assault.

It is common for prosecutors to strike deals with defendants willing to admit some wrongdoing because trials are time-consuming and expensive — and convictions are not guaranteed. In domestic violence cases, there is the added factor of victims, often battered into defeat and dependency, declining to cooperate or to press charges.

State court records from 2022 show that out of more than 38,400 domestic violence cases, about 40% ended with the victims dropping charges.

From 2016 through 2020, the state recorded 199 domestic violence fatalities. Of those, 118 involved violence between intimate partners. And many could have been foreseen.

In 2021, after years of lobbying by victims' advocates, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law increasing the severity of non-fatal strangulations to a second-degree crime. In many cases involving a woman who has been strangled to death, she had been choked by the same perpetrator in at least one previous incident.

On Jan. 9, South Brunswick police responded to the Route 27 ranch home of Romanovskiy and found Saldana's lifeless body in a bedroom near her 5-year-old son and newborn baby.

Romanovskiy was charged with murder after he told his landlord that he had strangled her, according to an affidavit of probable cause obtained by New Jersey 101.5.

He was also charged with second- and third-degree counts of child endangerment. His 5-year-old told investigators that his father had killed his mother.

Lauren Saldana remembered

Saldana was the mother of a 19-year-old daughter and sons ages 16, 5 and just 3 weeks old. Romanovskiy fathered her 5-year-old.

Her daughter told News 12 New Jersey that the couple had a volatile but enduring relationship.

“They broke up, they tried to stay away from each other, but in the end, she always wanted to be with her son,” the teen said. 

After news of the homicide, a cousin described Saldana's life as "difficult."

"Just know she was a fighter, from toddler until the end, she had a beautiful voice, and she loved her kids more than anything else in the world," he wrote in a Facebook tribute. 

All the social tributes to Saldana, as well as a GoFundMe campaign to defray the cost of her funeral, provide a link or phone number to a domestic violence hotline.

Her daughter said her mother was "not perfect ... but she loved me and her sons the best she could."

"She was always trying to do what’s best for her kids. She was a very free spirit, she always had something to laugh about, too. She struggled so much for so long and she was tired," she said.

Saldana loved music and as a young woman, she competed in singing competitions. Now, after her undeserving death, her daughter is her voice.

"I am posting this," she said, "so that you could all know what was done to her and hear her story."

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