South Brunswick Man Gets 12 Years for Running Down Wife

A South Brunswick man charged with murdering his wife by running her over in a parking lot on Route 1 was sentenced to serve 12 years in a New Jersey state prison after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter this week.

Samander Dabas, 46, must serve 85 percent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole in the death of wife Rena Dabas, 20, on Aug. 24, 2004. Samander Dabas was retried after the New Jersey State Supreme Court overturned his 2007 murder conviction in July, 2013.

Dabas was previously found guilty of running over his wife with a van as she ran from the vehicle in a Route 1 strip mall after a dispute in 2004, according to the county prosecutor's office, which also stated Dabas had been drinking at the time.

At the time of his first trial, the judge refused to instruct jurors as to the implications of the decision of Prosecutor’s Office Detective John Dando to destroy his pre-interview notes, according to nj.com. Dando allegedly used leading questions in his recorded interview. 

The questions led Dabas to give incriminating responses relating to the death of his wife, Rena, according to the report.

An appeals court ruled this was wrong, as it left Dando as the sole interpreter of Samander Dabas’s responses during the interview, putting Dabas at an unfair disadvantage. It overturned the conviction in 2011, according to the report.