On A Quiet Street, In A Quiet Town, A Murder Stuns

In the towns that still use emergency sirens, the sound of the siren is usually associated with a fire or an accident.

That's true in Ship Bottom, the small town on Long Beach Island, where sirens are uncommon, especially in the winter months.

"There's nothing that goes on here," said Greg Cudnik of Fisherman's Headquarters, located on Route 72 as you first drive onto Long Beach Island. "Obviously, there's stuff that goes on, but nothing like this."

The "this" he referred to was the death of .

O'Brien, 63, has been charged with murder in the death of Hunsinger, 73, who was found in the driveway of the two-story multifamily home on West 7th Street in Ship Bottom with serious injuries and later pronounced dead at Atlantic City Medical Center.

O'Brien is being held at the Ocean County Jail, Toms River, in lieu of $750,000 bail. He was arraigned before Superior Court Judge Stephanie Wauters on Thursday afternoon, where public defender Dawn Nee requested that a formal reading of the charges be waived.

Reports say O'Brien's sister, Carolyn Bushko, and other family members live in the multifamily house, and that Wauters granted a request to bar O'Brien from returning to the house if he should make bail.

"When you hear four whistles followed by a long whistle, you know it's a fire," said John, a neighbor who lives down the street from the driveway where Hunsinger was hit and gave only his first name. On Wednesday night, he said, he heard four whistles only as he was coming off the beach after surfing.

The next thing he heard was police cars. "I've never heard so many police cars," said John, who's lived in Ship Bottom for 25 years, though he was on the south side of the causeway for more than 20 years.

John said he knew Hunsinger only enough to wave hello. "He was always putzing around with his cars," John said. "He never bothered anybody."

Few people interviewed in town seemed to know either Hunsinger or O'Brien, but all agreed this was an unusual event for Long Beach Island. The only other murder any could think of was in 2004, when Gregory Gillick stabbed his 75-year-old stepmother, Doris Gillick, to death after a night of drinking in March 2004. Gillick, now 40, is serving 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to the crime in November 2006.

Cudnik, who has grown up at Fisherman's Headquarters, which his father bought more than 20 years ago, heard the medevac helicopter that took Hunsinger to Atlantic City, as did several other people.

Sean Adanatzian, who manages the Country Corner, a garden and produce stand across the eastbound lanes of Route 72 from Fisherman's Headquarters, said he heard the helicopter as well. He lives on West 7th Street, though farther down the street from the crime scene.

Adanzatzian, who has lived in Ship Bottom for 40 years, remembers the Gillick murder but said he could not recall any other event on the island like that of Wednesday night.

"It's busy in the summer, but quieter in the offseason," he said.

"It's calmer," said Sherry, who works at the Country Corner. "People are at their own pace" in the winter months.

At Walters Bicycles on Long Beach Boulevard, Tom Walters expressed surprise at the news of the murder, as did Denise Ross, who was in the shop to buy a bicycle for her son.

"I work in a salon and I hear everything," she said. "That's terrible."

At the Greenhouse Cafe, Donald Brown said the morning customers were discussing the murder charge, but only based on what they'd read. None seemed to know either Hunsinger or O'Brien, he said.

Late Thursday afternoon, police cars were still an intermittent presence at the house, which has a "for sale" sign in front of it. A woman had been seen in the doorway earlier in the day, and a young man had gone into the house. Two men left the house in the early afernoon, but no one was willing to discuss the events.

In this town — where the traffic lights blink instead of showing solid, where the winter population is 10 percent of the number people see on the island in the height of the tourist season — the events of Wednesday night will join the Gillick murder as something locals will talk about for years to come.

Related Topics: James Hunsinger, Murder Charge, and Terrence O'Brien