In man's death, 'all we have is questions'

IF A BLACK-and-white answer is needed, then Jose Mata died when one spastic, involuntary breath filled his lungs with muddy water.

But the seconds that led to that final gulp are as gray and murky as a low, thick fog. Mata's family believes that the answers hidden in that fog could explain why the 25-year-old ended up drowning Sept. 9 in the Cooper River, just below the State Street Bridge, in North Camden.

A man could be to blame for Mata's death, but investigators haven't charged him, and legal experts say the circumstances could make for a perplexing question on a law-school final - a case that could be argued either way.

"All we have is questions, and we have no answers," Mata's mother, Elizabeth Gomez, said in an interview in the living room of her Pennsauken split-level.

A quarrel with an ex-con

To get a clearer picture, one must rewind past that frantic, final gasp and those mysterious final moments that brought Mata to the river, to an altercation he had with an ex-con outside a North Camden grocery store.

Authorities and Mata's family now know that Mata had gone to William's Grocery on North Ninth Street that afternoon to right a perceived wrong, peacefully, but knowing that the man he was going to confront - Jose Nunez-Rodriguez - had recently been released from jail and owned a gun.

The situation devolved quickly, and Mata and Nunez-Rodriguez wrestled on the sidewalk. Shots were fired and, according to his father and brother, Mata fled, running about 50 yards down Vine Street before veering across North 10th Street into a trash-strewn lot near the river.

Jorge Mata, Jose's younger brother, believes that Jose, fearing for his life, was trying to hide in the woods along the river's steep banks, and either slipped or jumped into the small, turbulent river.

A police boat found his body floating in the Delaware River, just south of the Ben Franklin Bridge, two days later. No bullet wounds were discovered, and an autopsy ruled his death a drowning, his brother said.

"Nothing fits," Jorge Mata said. "He wouldn't have jumped in there for no reason."

Whether or not Mata feared for his life, authorities have not been able to determine how far or how long Nunez-Rodriguez may have chased him.

"We met with the attorneys and they said they couldn't connect the time frame," Mata said.

Nunez-Rodriguez has not been charged with murder or manslaughter. He is being held in the Camden County Jail on weapons and parole-violation charges.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office declined to comment on the incident because Nunez-Rodriguez's case is pending a grand-jury hearing. It is not clear whether he has an attorney.

Mata's family has a copy of New Jersey criminal statutes, provided by prosecutors to explain why they couldn't charge Nunez-Rodriguez with murder.

"I've read that paper many times and I don't understand it," said Mata's mother. "I have to do something. He's a human being."

'These are the toughest cases'

Legal experts say Mata's case is on the outer edges of the law, where the slightest detail, or lack thereof, can interrupt the link between cause and effect needed to charge someone with murder.

"With most murders, there's not much to debate," said Daniel M. Filler, a professor at the Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law. "These are the toughest cases to charge and convince a jury of. It comes down to whether there's enough causation."

Unless prosecutors file additional charges against Nunez-Rodriguez, it's unlikely that a grand jury could charge him with murder or manslaughter, experts said.

Although prosecutors may have looked into whether Nunez-Rodriguez recklessly caused Mata's death, they may not have had the facts or evidence to prove it, said Edward D. Ohlbaum, a professor at the Temple University Beasley School of Law.

"It was certainly a reckless act, but did it directly result in this man's death?" Ohlbaum asked. "What if the victim didn't know he was being chased? At any point, the causal relationship could have been interrupted."

Jorge Mata believes that the links between cause and effect are out there - namely, the witnesses who have clammed up about what happened and Nunez-Rodriguez's own family, who reported the incident as an attempted robbery.

By the time police arrived at William's Grocery about 12:30 p.m. that day, Mata was likely already dead or struggling as the Cooper River carried him out to the Delaware.

A contrary police report

According to a police report, Nunez-Rodriguez claimed to be the victim, saying that a "light-skinned male" had entered the store brandishing a large, silver handgun and demanding money.

According to the report, Nunez-Rodriguez claimed he grabbed the barrel of the gun and a scuffle ensued that spilled out to the sidewalk, where shots ultimately were fired.

Nunez-Rodriguez, 23, said that he lost control of the gun and that Mata then pointed it at him and pulled the trigger but the weapon didn't fire.

The report ends with Mata running toward 10th Street, and with Nunez-Rodriguez being treated for bite wounds before being taken in to speak with detectives.

Eddie Rodriguez, Nunez-Rodriguez's uncle, says he was with his nephew in the store on the day of the incident and claims the details in the police report are true.

"He come in here to try to rob it," Rodriguez said of Mata. "They try to put a different story on it. Everybody is saying something, but what if they know nothing?"

At some point, authorities say they learned that it was Nunez-Rodriguez who was the one demanding money from Mata and used his own gun.

Jorge Mata believes that his brother wouldn't have run unless Nunez-Rodriguez was chasing and threatening him with that gun.

"My brother was a big guy," he said. "He wasn't the kind of person you want to mess with."

A dispute over money

According to Jorge Mata, the troubles between the two men began when Nunez-Rodriguez gave Jose Mata a stolen check to cash. Mata tried to cash the check, his brother said, but the account was closed and no money was withdrawn.

In August, after Nunez-Rodriguez was released from a state juvenile correctional facility in Hunterdon County, he tracked Mata down to get his share of the check. He also showed Mata that he had a gun, Jorge Mata said.

Jose Mata asked others to intervene, his brother said, but when the issue wouldn't go away, he went to the store to talk to Nunez-Rodriguez.

"I told him to let it go," Jorge Mata said. "But that's not him, he wasn't scared of anybody. He didn't like things being unresolved, and he wasn't sure Nunez would let it go."

Jorge Mata said that his brother, unemployed at the time of his death, was harassed growing up in the Bronx because he was light-skinned.

"He really looked like a big white kid. It was tough for him, 'cause he got in a lot of fights," the brother said. "But he had a big heart. People gravitated to him."

Gomez was visiting relatives in the Dominican Republic with her husband when she learned of her son's death. After a funeral service in Pennsauken, she returned to the Caribbean nation to bury Jose in the city of Mao, where his grandparents owned land.

Mata now rests 1,000 miles away from South Jersey, but his family struggles to cope with what happened to him in the few short blocks between a grocery store and the turbulent river that swallowed him up. *