A New Jersey man who strangled his girlfriend,stuffed her body into a refrigeratorand drove it in the back of his pickup truck to a remote state forest has beensentenced to 17 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Christopher Blevins, 46, pleaded guilty in October tofirst-degree aggravated manslaughterover the death of 50-year-old Laura Hughes. He had originally been charged with first-degree murder, but that more serious count was dropped under a plea agreement, according to court reports.
Investigators said Blevins and Hughes had a 'history of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse'. The probable cause affidavit, cited by NJ.com, alleges that Blevins strangled Hughes before placing her body in a refrigerator and transporting it to the forest.
Breaking AC reported that on 24 July 2024, Blevins brought the fridge containing Hughes' body into Belleplain State Forest. Police later obtained images from licence plate readers that allegedly showed his green Dodge Ram pickup truck carrying a 'refrigerator-shaped object' on two separate days, shortly before he fled the United States.
As Law&Crimepreviously reported, Hughes's remains were discovered on 22 December 2024, according to a probable cause affidavit cited in reports.
In a Facebook post, state police released a description of an unidentified woman whose remains had been found. They said the body was believed to be that of a Caucasian or Hispanic woman, around 5ft 1in tall, and noted two distinctive tattoos: a koi fish on the upper right of her back and a rose running along her left ribs from chest to hip. A yoga mat and a necklace were also recovered at the scene.
According to Breaking AC, Blevins fled New Jersey on 2 August 2024, heading south through Texas before crossing into Mexico in the same Dodge Ram that investigators say had been used to haul the fridge. Police records cited in court documents describe the truck as 'solely operated' by him when it crossed the border.
On 27 August 2024, Blevins turned himself in to Mexican authorities and was arrested. After his arrest, he allegedly told investigators he had fled because he 'panicked' after being involved in a violent incident in New Jersey. He reportedly claimed he might also have killed another person during a bar fight, though that assertion has not been tested in court in the reporting seen so far.
In court, Blevins apologised for the 'pain and suffering' he had caused and insisted he had not meant to kill Hughes. 'I do not know why it happened. I wish I could do things differently, in that I just left,' he said, according to NJ.com.
For Hughes' family, particularly her daughters, the sentencing is not the end of anything meaningful. Their father, Cornel Alston, spoke in court about the impact of the killing on the two girls Hughes leaves behind. He said the younger daughter, now 14, describes herself as a 'secondary victim of a homicide', a phrase that captures more brutally than any legal term how a crime like this ripples through a family.
Source: International Business Times UK
