NJ NJ - Gabrielle Mueller, 31, Toms River, 1 April 2001

Gabrielle Mueller, 31, was last seen alive during the evening hours of Sunday, April 1, 2001. The Toms River resident was reported missing the following day. That morning, she was found strangled in a wooded area of Salem Street in Lakewood, close to the Lakewood Industrial Park. Her blue Toyota Corolla was located in Lakewood the day after her body was discovered. An autopsy revealed that the she died as a result of strangulation and her death was ruled a homicide.

Mueller, who was a secretary with the state Department of Environmental Protection's Toms River office, also worked part-time for an ambulance service that covered the Lakewood Industrial Park. She lived at the Toms River Apartments on Main Street in Toms River.

Mueller disappeared several hours after having dinner with her ex-husband and one of their two children on Sunday, April 1, 2001. The couple dined at the Primetime Cafe on Route 571 in Toms River.

The couple regularly ate together as they exchanged custody of their children, who were 8 and 9 years old at the time.

After leaving the restaurant, Mueller and one of her children went home to her apartment. She left her apartment about 8 p.m., telling her child that she was going to a nearby store, but she never returned. Her former husband filed a missing persons report with the then-Dover Township Police Department (now Toms River), on Monday, April 2, 2001.

Her body was found by workers in the Industrial Park who were taking a lunchtime walk on Salem Street on Tuesday, April 3, 2001. Her fully-clothed body was found about 20 feet from Salem Street, in a patch of woods located about 400 yards east of New Hampshire Avenue.



http://www.app.com/story/news/crime...eek-help-solve-15-year-old-homicide/83385572/
http://patch.com/new-jersey/pointpleasant/who-killed-gabrielle-mueller-cold-case-still-open
http://wobm.com/15-years-later-hunt-for-toms-river-moms-killer-presses-on/

18 years and still no answer

A jealous significant other whom was not happy about her having dinner with the ex-husband is the first thing that comes to mind.

Toms River isn't known for high crime rates. Cancer rates, yes, crime, no. And Lakewood even then had even less crime.

I wonder what store she "said" she was going to. And I wonder if that store had surveillance cameras.

Her kids were young to be left alone... only 8 and 9. So I would assume she planned on being back in a couple of minutes.

It states that she was having dinner with her ex-husband and one of her children and she returned to her apartment with one of her children. Where was the other child during all of this?

TOMS RIVER – On April 3, 2001, Jody Mueller made the worst trip of his life.

He drove to his brother's Somerset home, where his children were staying, to tell them that their mother, his ex-wife Gabrielle, had been killed.

Nineteen years later, his voice breaks with emotion recalling that awful conversation. "How in the world do you tell an 8- and a 9-year-old … that their mom died?"

Two nights before, Gabrielle Mueller, 31, left their then-9-year-old daughter Jessica and 8-year-old son Justin with a teenage sitter so that she could go to McDonald's to buy them some McFlurries ice cream.

They waited and waited for their frozen treats. She never came home.

Gabrielle's strangled body was found in a wooded area in Lakewood two days later.

Her killer remains at large, though investigators believe the case is "solvable."

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