EPISODE 1: Meet the Sheridans
Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery
WNYC
4.6 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
On a quiet cul-de-sac, a husband and wife of 47 years are stabbed to death in the stillness of dawn. Honest and unassuming, John Sheridan, famous for never raising his voice, played against type in the rough-and-tumble world of New Jersey politics. Could the Republican lobbyist have killed his wife Joyce—a veteran public school teacher and no-nonsense mother of four sons—then set their bedroom on fire before knifing himself? That’s the version of events authorities say happened in the early morning hours of September 28, 2014. But, in more ways than one, the theory doesn’t add up.
Key voices interviewed in episode:
- Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor
- Chris Stevens, Joyce Sheridan’s best friend
- Bob Stevens, husband of Chris’ Stevens
- Mark Sheridan, eldest of the Sheridans’ four sons, lawyer for Governor Chris Christie's campaign and for the state Republican party for more than a decade
- Peter Sheridan, John’s younger brother and federal judge in Trenton since 2005
- Mary Kay Roberts, hired by John Sheridan at Riker Danzig, a New Jersey law firm. Worked with him closely for a decade in the Trenton office
- John Farmer, a former state Attorney General and friend of John Sheridan who runs a political research center at Rutgers University
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We were putting the final touches on this series, when a news story went viral. |
| 0:09.5 | The Jersey political world is still in a state of shock after a political consultant admitted |
| 0:14.0 | his role in a murder for higher plot this week. |
| 0:16.6 | Sean Cattle used two hitmen to murder former Jersey City Council candidate Michael Galdieri |
| 0:21.3 | in 2014 and that bombshell. |
| 0:23.8 | So a guy who worked on campaigns for some of the biggest names in the state hired two |
| 0:29.7 | hitmen to murder a rival political consultant. |
| 0:35.8 | Hitmen, politics, and a payoff at a diner. |
| 0:40.4 | While everyone was pointing out just how Jersey this was, my mind went to something quite |
| 0:44.8 | different. |
| 0:47.2 | This sounded a hell of a lot like the podcast I'm working on. |
| 0:51.8 | This morning, the mystery deepens over the death of John and Joyce Sheridan, a prominent |
| 0:57.3 | New Jersey couple with powerful connections and close friends of Governor Chris Christie. |
| 1:02.8 | The first responders who came into the door of the Sheridan home early the morning of September |
| 1:06.4 | 28 found what could only be described as a house of horror. |
| 1:13.0 | In both cases, people involved in politics were stabbed to death and the room set on |
| 1:19.6 | fire. |
| 1:22.0 | And both crimes happened just four months apart in 2014. |
| 1:26.6 | Suddenly, people are interested again in a case I've been focused on for two years. |
| 1:33.0 | I've done little else but try to figure out what happened to John and Joyce Sheridan |
| 1:37.6 | and why a case involving such a prominent figure was ignored by the highest levels of law |
| 1:43.1 | enforcement and government. |
... |
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