A week ago, Trecia Lewis and her husband, Richard, gathered at a relative’s Hillside home to help plan a family vacation to a timeshare in Virginia Beach.
The tight-knit family members were eager to pack their cars with sunscreen and beach umbrellas and to get away together for a week of sand, surf and relaxation, even though the vacation wasn’t for another month.
That was the last time, some of Lewis’ aunts said, they saw the couple.
Investigators believe Richard Lewis killed his wife and then killed himself in their second-floor apartment in what Hillside police and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office are calling a suspected murder-suicide.
Family members said that Lewis’ 15-year-old daughter awoke this morning to find her mother unresponsive and called her grandmother, who called police.
When officers arrived at the house in the 200 block of Hillside Avenue at 10 a.m. today, they found 35-year-old Lewis’ body lying on a bed, according to a press release from Hillside police. Officers then discovered 45-year-old Richard Lewis’ body sprawled in the bathtub.
"The husband killed the wife," said John Holl, a spokesman for Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow.
The daughter and the Lewises’ 11-year-son were not harmed, police said.
Tonight, two police cruisers and a pair of crime-scene sport utility vehicles stood parked in front of the two-story home with tan aluminum siding.
Police would not comment on when or how the Lewises died.
Last night, Lewis’ aunt Diane Brooks described her niece as a "loving, devoted mother and wife" who had a good relationship with her husband. The couple met 13 years ago while both were living in Newark. They would have celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary this month, Brooks said.
Reflecting on her marriage, Lewis tried on her wedding dress and posted a photo of herself to her Facebook page in late April, exclaiming that it still fit — after nearly a decade. A week later, she posted a photo of the flowers her husband sent for her birthday.
The Lewis family moved to Hillside so their children could go to the township’s public schools. She had grown up in Alabama, but moved to Newark as a teenager and graduated from West Side High School there.
About two years ago, they moved into the two-family house next to an Elks Lodge and close to Sanford Park, on a street lined with residences and light industry.
Brooks said Lewis worked at Bank of America in Newark as a supervisor in the credit card division, but Richard had been unemployed for more than a year. She said he used to work at Newark Liberty International Airport.
The couple often socialized with Lewis’ extended family, gathering with groups of her roughly 50 cousins for barbecues and game nights. Brooks said Richard Lewis’ family is from Newark. They could not be located for comment last night.
"As far as I know, he was a devoted husband. Very mild mannered and very quiet," Brooks said of Richard Lewis. "They didn’t talk much about their relationship, so we didn’t know. Their personal business was their personal business."
The couple’s landlord, Festus Ezeji, painted a more troubled image, but still said he was shocked by what happened to the quiet family.
He said they fell behind on their rent last year when Richard Lewis lost his job. The couple told him they were having financial difficulties.
Ezeji, who lives with his family on the Hillside Avenue house’s lower level, said the Lewises had agreed to pay him the back rent they owed, but fell behind again earlier this year.
The couple had promised to come up to date by Friday, which they were unable to do, he said.
Ezeji said he didn’t hear any commotion upstairs, and he learned of his tenants’ deaths only after police arrived at the house this morning.
"There were no severe quarrels between them," he said. "They were very peaceful."
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