Cancun trip over Valentine’s Day fed ‘furious’ rage that led N.J. corrections officer to kill girlfriend, 2nd – NJ.com

It was supposed to be a much-needed break from the year of COVID-19 restrictions for Anna Shpilberg and her four friends. She threw together the trip to Cancun, Mexico with less than a month of planning and they found themselves basking in the warm sunshine over Valentine’s Day weekend.

The five friends even donned red bikinis on the beach at Shpilberg’s suggestion on Valentine’s Day.

At home in New Jersey, however, Shpilberg’s boyfriend John Menendez brooded over her getaway with friends and that anger turned to deadly rage when she refused to answer his repeated calls during the trip, according to investigators and family. Menendez, a Hudson County corrections officer, is accused of killing Shpilberg and her friend Luiza Shinkarevskaya, both 40, after they landed at Newark Liberty International Airport on Feb. 16.

Shinkarevskaya’s cousin, Mishel Chan-Min, told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday that Menendez, who is 17 years younger than Shpilberg, was “furious and he was upset.” According to Chan-Min, Menendez told Shinkarevskaya’s boyfriend that “he can’t believe they went on vacation and that Anna was going to hear it from him when she got off the plane.”

Shinkarevskaya’s boyfriend, who is identified only as “Witness B” in court papers, tried to calm Menendez down, even offering to pick up the women from the airport himself.

“I’m fine. I’ll go pick them up,” Menendez allegedly said, according to the boyfriend’s account to police.

Menendez met them at Newark airport shortly after their flight arrived 8:30 p.m. and drove both women to an off-airport parking lot where Shinkarevskaya had left her car, investigators and family of the women said. Menendez shot Shinkarevskaya in the head and left her on a sidewalk bleeding before driving about a mile to a spot a block from Newark Penn Station, where Shpilberg was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, according to family and investigators.

Menendez, who had blood on him, walked up to a city police officer sitting in his patrol car near the scene and confessed, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by police in support of murder charges.

“I killed both of them. Just arrest me, bro,” Menendez allegedly told the officer. When the officer read Menendez his rights and handcuffed him, he continued to talk, authorities said. “This is crazy. I can’t believe I did this,” Menendez told the officer, according to court records.

He remained in the Essex County Jail on Tuesday, pending a detention hearing on March 2. Court records do not list an attorney for Menendez.

Chan-Min said Tuesday that Menendez was constantly calling Shpilberg when they were not together. Others who knew the couple voiced similar concerns about Menendez’s behavior, noting he sometimes required her to send photos proving where she was.

“He was always with her, he was always calling,” Chan-Min said. “I don’t think Luiza and her even got to go out without him. He was always there. Any step that she took, he was there. So I was just surprised that she went without him.”

Shinkarevskaya, who had addresses in Morris County and in Brooklyn, New York, was found fatally shot about 9:53 p.m. in the 100 block of Haynes Avenue near the airport, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.

Shpilberg, of Randolph, was found dead at 9:55 p.m. in the passenger seat of her vehicle in the area of Edison Place and Bruen Street near Newark Penn Station, according to the prosecutor’s office.

In an interview with police after the killings, Menendez said “Anna had been ignoring his calls. He said he lost it and killed them,” detectives wrote in a probable cause affidavit filed in the case.

Chan-Min said her cousin texted her photos of the resort where they stayed in Cancun and that she appeared to be having a good time with Shpilberg and the others.

Shpilberg and Shinkarevskaya emigrated to the United States from the Ukraine as children about three decades ago and were close friends, according to family and friends.

Shinkarevskaya was an ultrasound technician who worked out of an office in Manhattan. Shpilberg was a dental hygienist who worked on Staten Island, friends said.

Chan-Min said she met first Menendez during an outing with her cousin and Shpilberg at the beach more than a year ago and that he “seemed off.”

“I thought he was weird. Their age difference alone was just weird,” Chan-Min said. “But he also felt distant. His energy was off, like he was there but not really there at all.”

“I just felt like he was uncomfortable,” she said, adding that the women all spoke Russian and he did not, which may have contributed to his “feeling left out.”

Chan-Min said she last saw Menendez during Shinkarevskaya’s birthday party on Oct. 27, 2020 and that he seemed to enjoy himself.

“He was pouring shots and the women were drinking,” she said. “He seemed okay, like he was finally having a good time.”

Services were held for Shinkarevskaya on Sunday at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. After a private graveside service, she was interred at Mt. Moriah Cemetery Jewish Cemetery in Fairview, Bergen County, according to Chan-Min. A GoFundMe to help cover those funeral costs has raised more than $6,000.

Chan-Min said Shinkarevskaya was an only child and that her parents were at the services, along with aunts, uncles, cousins and dozens of friends and co-workers.

“The service was hard. Everyone is still basically in shock,” said Chan-Min, who last saw her cousin three days before she left for Cancun.

As of Tuesday, funeral arrangements had not been completed for Shpilberg, according to her former fiancé, Fabian Goni.

Several of Shpilberg’s relatives have arrived from the Ukraine and are still in the process of deciding where to hold the funeral and burial, Goni said.

Friends and family were also there to comfort Shpilberg’s 15-year-old son, who attends school in Randolph. A GoFundMe set up for the teenager had raised more than $42,000 as of Tuesday.

“Words cannot accurately describe Daniel’s grief right now,” the GoFundMe states. “His future is uncertain but his main wish is to continue his life in Randolph, the only home he knows, surrounded by his friends, classmates, and neighbors.”

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Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.