Sheridan survivors dispute findings in their parents' deaths

NEWARK, N.J. - Mark Sheridan was celebrating his 12th wedding anniversary the day his parents died.

He was at a luxury hotel on New York's Upper East Side, packing up, when he got a call from his brother, Matt.

Their parents' home was on fire. It was about 6:45 a.m. Sept. 28, 2014.

By the time Sheridan and his wife got into their car to drive to the scene, another call came in: John P. Sheridan Jr., chief executive of Cooper Health Systems, and his wife, Joyce, were dead.

Mark, his three brothers, and the rest of his family were just starting a saga that has included a six-month investigation, a contentious dispute with Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano, and now, a threat of a lawsuit to overturn the county's finding that John Sheridan stabbed his wife to death and then took his own life by slashing himself and setting their bedroom on fire.

It's a finding that Mark Sheridan, 41, says is undermined by an incompetent investigation. A litigator who long worked for the state Republican Party, he spoke to The Inquirer on Monday in a detailed interview about the high-profile deaths of his parents, who long traveled in elite political and civic circles.

"I fight for a living," Sheridan said in a conference room overlooking Newark's Penn Station. "This is not a fight I ever expected to have."

Mark Sheridan's twin brother, Matt, was the first to hear about the fire. He was on a fishing trip off Long Island when a neighbor sent him a text message about the blaze at the Montgomery Township house.

After a series of calls, another brother, Danny, 39, raced to the scene. He was the first to learn their parents were dead.

Mark met another brother, Tim, 37, at Mark's home.

"What the hell is going on?" they asked as they drove to the scene. The fire was out when they arrived.

Mark Sheridan, deeply versed in state politics, said he trusted the Prosecutor's Office. "I had huge faith in the system."

He got a call that day from Gov. Christie, who left a message offering condolences.

But after hours of questioning, Mark Sheridan said, he thought the Prosecutor's Office was already leaning toward one conclusion: murder-suicide.

"To the extent that there was any discussion of third parties, it was very, very little," he said.

Sheridan said the brothers cannot imagine that their father, 72, could have killed their mother, 69. He was "unflappable," never angry at her.

Joyce Sheridan, the feisty one, "could spend money like water," and her husband would not stop her, Mark Sheridan said.

He and his father usually talked business or politics. Work was the last thing Mark Sheridan spoke to his father about, the Tuesday before the fire, he said.

John, Tim, and Danny Sheridan shared a love for the Boston Red Sox. Matt spent the most time with him - he had recently moved home after their mother's back surgery.

Mark Sheridan's last talk with his mother was about a horseback-riding competition for his daughter. She had drawn her granddaughter into the sport.

The day before John Sheridan died, the brothers say, he decorated for Halloween and did other chores. Around 5:30 p.m. he spoke by video phone with Tim Sheridan and his disabled son, Quinn.

John Sheridan, as usual, tried to coax Quinn to say "Grandpa," waving a $1 bill as a reward, Mark Sheridan said.

A little later, John Sheridan e-mailed Cooper Hospital chairman George E. Norcross III about work.

The next morning, John Sheridan is said to have killed his wife of 47 years.

Among the many questions raised by the family is what motive could have led to the crime and suicide.

Prosecutors have said that they examined all possibilities and that the evidence pointed to their conclusion. Soriano has declined numerous interview requests, including on Monday.

The family's break with investigators happened quickly.

A meeting three days after the fire turned tense when one of Soriano's top assistants told the grieving family that John Sheridan's wounds were the kind he might make when trying to kill himself.

"Immediately, the rest of the family goes off the deep end," Mark Sheridan said. It was the first formal word that investigators seemed to believe his father had killed himself, he said.

Days later, the family's private forensic pathologist, Michael Baden, examined John Sheridan's body and found that neither knife found at the house had caused any of his five stab wounds, a possibility that appeared to have escaped the Prosecutor's Office.

The missing weapon has never been identified.

Since then, Mark Sheridan said, the relationship between the family and prosecutors has been "as adversarial as you can imagine."

He said he plans to file a lawsuit as early as next week to try to overturn the state medical examiner's ruling that John Sheridan's death was a suicide. Gearing for conflict with Soriano, he recently resigned as general counsel for the Republican Party.

"If it's not a murder-suicide, I believe there had to be multiple intruders involved," Mark Sheridan said.

But he acknowledges he can't be sure of what happened or who would want to kill his parents.

"Unfortunately, we're never going to get the answers we want, given the investigation that was done," Mark Sheridan said. The best the family is hoping for is a decision in court changing the father's manner of death from suicide to "undetermined."

"It's been a tough six months," he said. "It's been a very tough six months."