FORT LEE, N.J. (AP) - A man angry that his girlfriend was trying to break up with him struck her with his car and repeatedly backed over her body, prosecutors said Tuesday in charging him with murder.
Charles Ann had been dating 25-year-old Aena Hong for about a year, and the pair had a tumultuous relationship, Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli said.
Witnesses told police they saw a woman on foot arguing with the driver of a 2011 Hyundai Sonata at about 5 p.m. Monday in Fort Lee, a northern New Jersey borough next to the George Washington Bridge, directly across from Manhattan.
The car drove away from the woman, turned around, rapidly accelerated and struck her as she was crossing an intersection, witnesses said. The driver then put the car in reverse and ran over the woman's body three times, investigators said.
Hong, of Fort Lee, was pronounced dead at a hospital. Police found the Hyundai Sonata, registered to Ann, in Fort Lee a few hours later.
The 26-year-old Ann, who is unemployed, was arrested at 4 a.m. Tuesday at a friend's apartment in Flushing, N.Y.
Ann, a native of South Korea, came to the U.S. in 2009 and is a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in Fort Lee, authorities said. He was carrying a large amount of cash and his passport when he was arrested, leading investigators to believe he might have been preparing to flee the country, Molinelli said.
Ann is being held on $3 million bail and is awaiting extradition to New Jersey. It isn't clear if he has a lawyer.