Town note
Native Americans used the area to hunt and fish during the summer before Europeans arrived.
about 0:11:37Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 93 / 8 November 2018 / 133 MIN / full
We're going all the way to Middle Township, New Jersey, which is at the very bottom of Jersey; it's in Cape May County. about 0:06:17
Native Americans used the area to hunt and fish during the summer before Europeans arrived.
about 0:11:37The area that is now Cape May County was claimed at different times as part of New Netherlands, New Sweden, the province of New Jersey under the British crown and later West Jersey.
about 0:11:49On August 28th, 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson entered the Delaware Bay and stayed one day on land at what is now Cape May Point.
about 0:12:31Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobson May sailed the New Jersey coastline from 1620 to 1621.
about 0:13:51Native Americans used the area to hunt and fish during the summer before Europeans arrived.
about 0:11:37The area that is now Cape May County was claimed at different times as part of New Netherlands, New Sweden, the province of New Jersey under the British crown and later West Jersey.
about 0:11:49On August 28th, 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson entered the Delaware Bay and stayed one day on land at what is now Cape May Point.
about 0:12:31Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobson May sailed the New Jersey coastline from 1620 to 1621.
about 0:13:51The Dutch West India Company purchased 16 square miles of land from the indigenous people along the Delaware River, then bought more land about 11 years later.
about 0:14:33The Dutch founded a town bank in the area in 1640 around the Delaware Bay because it was a whaling village.
about 0:15:36Whale numbers declined by 1685, the bank lost its money, and by 1750 most of the town was gone again.
about 0:15:56The first water mill in the county was constructed in 1699 in Cold Spring.
about 0:18:13The first Baptist church was built in 1712.
about 0:18:19The first Cold Spring Presbyterian church was built in 1718 and served as the centre of early local government.
about 0:18:25The first jail and courthouse were built in 1764.
about 0:19:12In 1750 the population was around a thousand.
about 0:19:17The area grew as what the hosts call America's oldest bathing resort, or in the town's preferred phrase the nation's oldest seashore resort.
about 0:19:50During the Revolutionary War two British ships pursued and attacked the American brig Nancy, which fled into an inlet; the abandoned and sabotaged brig exploded after the British boarded it, killing 30 British sailors.
about 0:21:13Cape May County was split into three townships, lower, middle and upper, in 1798.
about 0:21:42During the War of 1812 British raids forced farms in the area to supply food and water.
about 0:21:50Cape Island Borough was the oldest independent borough in the county and became part of Cape May in 1869.
about 0:22:01Ocean City, in Lower Township, was founded as a religious retreat.
about 0:22:07A land development company established Avalon in Cape May County in 1887.
about 0:22:33Woodbine was founded in 1891 as an agricultural settlement for Russian Jews fleeing religious persecution.
about 0:22:40North Cape May was founded in 1928 and dissolved after it failed to attract development.
about 0:23:27The area floundered until the Garden State Parkway was built in 1955 and tourists could get down there.
about 0:23:37The town's motto is 'where New Jersey truly meets Panhandle'.
about 0:11:15Middle Township covers 82 square miles, 70 of them on land.
about 0:09:2554%
Biggest faith: Catholic, 37%
about 0:28:56White about 83% · Black 10% · Asian about 1.79% · Hispanic 5%
Ethnicity can overlap race.Property crime
▲ about 20% higher
Violent crime
▲ about 20% higher
Three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,296 square feet
about 0:31:52Three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,700 square feet
about 0:32:20Four-bedroom, three-bath house on the water, 3,100 square feet
about 0:32:37"18,778"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:28
"14,771"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:33
"about 21%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:40
"19%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:47
"44.6"
Comparison: "about seven years older than normal". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:54
"54%"
Comparison: "50-50 is the normal". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:27:27
"2.58"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:27:55
"about 83%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:27:59
"10%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:27:59
"about 1.79%"
Comparison: "about half of the norm". Direction: below.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:05
"5%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:12
"54%"
Comparison: "a little above the average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:56
"37%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:00
"0.3%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:15
"0.0%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:23
"0.0%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:33
"45%"
Comparison: "county figures, no town voting stats". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:43
"54%"
Comparison: "county figures, no town voting stats". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:43
"6.8%"
Comparison: "national about 5.2%". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:29:57
"$57,394"
Comparison: "about $4,000 over the national average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:30:07
"$125 out of $100"
Comparison: "$100 is average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:30:24
"$177"
Comparison: "$100 is average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:30:28
"$333,500"
Comparison: "national average $216,000". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:00
"about 40% of houses"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:05
"about 51%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:20
"$1,350 a month"
Comparison: "national average about $1,250". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:42
"$160,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:52
"$269,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:32:20
"$525,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:32:37
"about 20% higher"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:34:13
"about 20% higher"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:34:23
3.0 / 5 · average of 1
“There are good and bad people in this community, but drug use is on the rise and is causing crime rates to increase; it is sad to see and makes the reviewer want to move away.”about 0:35:29
Josephine Trombetta was twenty-nine years old in 1980. She had graduated from Millville Senior High School in 1970 and lived in South Dennis, New Jersey, a short drive from the southern tip of the state.
The two men were drinking when Josephine arrived and she joined them. Josephine denied it and, sensibly, decided to leave. They would not let her.
What followed lasted around six hours. They held her against her will, forced her to undress, beat and kicked her, and made her sign over the title to her car, which is why two of them were later caught trying to sell it. They shaved her head, spray-painted her body from head to toe with black paint and made her put her breasts in boiling water. Twice during the ordeal they forced her to perform oral sex on a dog.
Shovels had been put in the car before they left. In fact she was still alive. She was buried, dug up still alive, and buried again.
Josephine had last been seen on 4 December.
On 10 January 1981 Bert Schubert, a former policeman, was walking in the woods between ten and eleven in the morning when he found a partially frozen body in a shallow grave, 250 yards east of Stagecoach Road and about half a mile from Shell Bay Road, in the Cape May Courthouse section of Middle Township. The body was jet black, which at first looked like burning but was paint, and the head was shaved. The clothing matched Josephine's. Police roped off the area and waited until about seven in the evening for the state medical examiner, Dr Robert Good, to be flown in to supervise the excavation. The body went to the morgue at Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital and was autopsied the next day once it had thawed. The autopsy showed she had not been pregnant.
Bail was set at $250,000 each for the three men and $75,000 each for the three women.
He was due to be eligible to apply again in 2016.
December 1980 / apartment in Swainton, then woods off Stagecoach Road in Middle Township, New Jersey
As told in the episode, on 8 November 2018.
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Public places are marked on the map.
body found
about 0:43:42road
about 0:43:42road
about 0:43:52other
about 1:14:05landmark
about 1:22:47hospital
about 0:47:32school
about 0:48:40church
about 0:18:25landmark
about 0:13:22business
about 0:53:26road
about 0:23:37