BY MICHELLE SAHN • NJ PRESS MEDIA • February 3, 2011
FREEHOLD — A former Manasquan man pleaded guilty today to reckless manslaughter, admitting he accidentally shot his wife during a struggle inside the couple's home in 2005.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, entered today before state Superior Court Judge Daniel Waldman, the defendant, Alan Stoedter, 65, now of Lake Hopatcong, faces up to 10 years in prison, with an 8 1/2 year period of parole ineligibility, when he is sentenced on April 1.
Stoedter was arrested in 2008 and charged with the 2005 murder of his wife, Donna, a bank vice-president.
Today in court, under questioning from his attorney, Edward C. Bertucio Jr., of Hobbie, Corrigan & Bertucio, Alan Stoedter said on Dec. 14, 2005, there was a .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun on a small table by the couple's bed, because Donna Stoedter had worried about recent break-ins in the area.
Early that morning, the two got into an argument over finances and Alan Stoedter's suspicion that his wife was seeing another man, he said. He said his picked up the gun and said he was going to find her boyfriend and shoot him. Alan Stoedter said he and his wife had a brief struggle, and the gun went off and his wife was killed.
In response to a question from Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor John Loughrey, Alan Stoedter said he only remembered one shot being fired, but he realized that evidence in the case showed three shots had been fired. According to court documents, the victim suffered three bullet wounds: to her chest, finger and behind her left ear.
Loughrey told the judge the state amended the charge from murder to reckless manslaughter after discussions with the victim's family. He said after the five-year anniversary of her death, they indicated they wanted to begin to focus on, and celebrate her life, instead of constantly focusing on her death. He said they told him they were interested in proceeding to a plea agreement involving a manslaughter charge, and he noted that if the case had gone to trial, it would have been a lengthy one. He and Assistant Prosecutor Barbara Suppa anticipated calling more than 50 witnesses, yet the outcome, would still be uncertain, he said. Bertucio - whose offices are in Eatontown and Toms River -- said his client decided to plead guilty after long discussions with his lawyers.
"This guilty plea was entered into after lengthy deliberations between Alan and his attorneys (Bertucio and Norman M. Hobbie) and after much soul searching by Alan himself," said Bertucio after the plea hearing. "In the end, Alan's primary concern was to bring closure to this matter for everyone concerned, in his family and in Donna Stoedter's family."
In August, a state appeals court said the audio portion of Alan Stoedter’s interview with police could not be played at his trial, but jurors could be allowed to view some portions of that videotape.
Police videotaped an interview with Alan Stoedter on Dec. 14, 2005 – the day he said he came home from a doctor’s appointment to find that his Church Street house had been ransacked and his 43-year-old wife had been shot.
At one point, he was left alone in the room at the police station and he tried -- unsuccessfully – to pull out the wire of the recording device, and then he rifled through an investigator’s jacket, according to the ruling. The court ruled that part of the tape would be among the portions that could be played at trial.
The audio was excluded from trial because static caused by radio transmissions in the next room of the police station made portions of the tape "wholly inaudible."
Alan Stoedter, was a retired state Department of Agriculture employee who worked part-time at a Point Pleasant Beach gym.
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