Owner of Comedy Club and Nanny Are Killed at Maplewood, N.J., Home – The New York Times
The 911 call came just after sunrise on Saturday: A woman was being attacked outside a house in Maplewood, N.J.
When officers arrived, they found a woman lying on the street — critically injured but still alive — outside a two-story colonial-style home. The police entered the house and discovered a male victim.
The man, David Kimowitz, 40, who managed comedians and owned a popular comedy club in New York City, was pronounced dead in his home, the authorities said on Sunday. The woman, Karen L. Bermudez-Rodriguez, 26, an au pair for Mr. Kimowitz’s two young children, later died at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.
The police announced on Sunday that they had arrested Ms. Bermudez-Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Joseph D. Porter, 27, in connection with the deaths. He was charged with two counts of murder, possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and criminal restraint. He is being held at the Essex County Correctional Facility.
Mr. Kimowitz’s two young daughters and his wife, Laura, were not home at the time of the attack, the authorities said.
The killings stunned residents of the leafy suburb about 20 miles west of New York City. Until Saturday, there had been only 15 homicides in Maplewood, a town of about 25,000 people, over the past three decades, according to state and federal authorities.
Neighbors said on Sunday that they could hear Ms. Bermudez-Rodriguez screaming from inside their homes before she collapsed on the street.
“It’s a shocking feeling,” Kathy Cantwell, who lives next door to the Kimowitz family, said. “You wish you could have interceded or you could have saved David.”
Several neighbors said that in the days before the attack, they noticed a man they did not recognize sitting in a dark-colored sedan near the family’s house. While they had alerted one another about the man, they did not call the police. The authorities have not said whether that man was Mr. Porter.
On Sunday, a large portion of Walden Road, a tree-lined street with rows of clapboard homes, remained an active crime scene. Yellow police tape surrounded the Kimowitzes’ home, and officers were seen looking through shrubs outside nearby homes.
Neighbors of the Kimowitz family said that the family’s daughters were often seen playing outside with Ms. Bermudez-Rodriguez.
On Sunday, friends placed flowers outside the house, at the corner of Walton Road and Jefferson Avenue, which the family had bought in 2017.
Andrew De la Torre, who lived near the Kimowitzes, said that the family had employed several au pairs, who rotated every few months, since they moved into the house.
“They have a little balcony that they would be playing out there with their kids,” Mr. De la Torre said on Sunday. “They’d have family friends over. Really nice people.”
Mr. Kimowitz was well-known in the New York comedy scene, as both a manager of comedians and one of four founders of the Stand Restaurant and Comedy Club, a comedy venue near Gramercy Park in Manhattan.
While the biggest club in town, the Comedy Cellar, attracted comedy elite like Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle, the Stand maintained a steady rotation of high-profile performers including Tracy Morgan, Janeane Garofalo and Dave Attell. “There’s a stigma about comedy clubs,” Mr. Kimowitz told The New York Times in an interview in 2012. “They’re tourist traps, watered-down drinks. We’re trying to evolve the comedy club.”
The Stand closed its Gramercy Park location last year and reopened a few weeks ago in a fancier and larger space near Union Square. The founders added an upscale restaurant in an attempt to differentiate itself from other clubs. The club also has a green room — a rarity in most clubs — and two rooms with low ceilings for intimate performances.
The Stand hosts a popular weekly comedy podcast, “The Legion of Skanks,” which features comedians managed by Mr. Kimowitz.
In 2012, Mr. Kimowitz and the same group that had opened the Stand started the Standing Room comedy club in Long Island City, Queens. While they had hoped to attract top comedians to perform there, the Standing Room could not replicate the success of the Manhattan venue and closed last summer.
Comedians who knew Mr. Kimowitz said that they were stunned by the news of his death.
“A great guy and friend has passed this weekend,” Rich Vos, a comedian, said on Twitter. “He seemed so happy, a wife, 2 kids, his new club opened.”
A LinkedIn page for Mr. Kimowitz said that he had received a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University in New York in 2002 and had joined several comedy ventures, including a company called Cringe Humor, which had started the Stand. He was also a partner of CH Entertainment, a talent agency with clients that included Mr. Vos. The group previously represented the comedian Pete Davidson.
Lauren Hard and Jason Zinoman contributed reporting.