Who killed Frankie? – nj.com

Reporting by Adam Clark, Illustrations by Jackie Roche | December 19, 2024

Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of violence that might be too intense for some readers.

The dead body rests on Frank Rance’s living room couch.

It lays face down, spilling partially onto the floor as Rance dials 911 just before midnight. His flat voice offers only the faintest hint of alarm.

“I’m sorry to report this, but, uh, I think my roommate is dead,” Rance says with detached calm on Nov. 5, 2021.

His roommate, Frank Majuri, 60, is an usher at Sunday Mass and a long-time library volunteer known by family and friends as “Frankie.” He’s lived with Rance for three months. Both have been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

SERV Behavioral Health, a not-for-profit group the state of New Jersey pays to find housing for adults with serious mental illness, placed them together in a Wayne condominium. It declared them a perfect match.

At least until Rance strangled Majuri that fall night with his bare hands.

“Do you want to do CPR?” the 911 operator asks Rance, a tall, quiet New York Knicks fan with a shaved head.

“I think it’s too late,” he replies.

She tells Rance she can walk him through the process.

“Honestly,” Rance says, “he’s dead.”

The details of Majuri’s horrific killing have never been in question. Rance, then 38, was convinced Majuri stole his missing Social Security check from their mailbox, his brain unwilling, or perhaps unable, to accept any other possibility, police body cam footage shows.

Rance, 6-foot-1 and 374 pounds, later confessed he “lost it.” He casually explained he strangled his older roommate for about five full minutes, according to the Passaic County Prosecutor’s office. He watched Majuri’s eyes bulge and his face turn purple, Rance told authorities, screaming at him until all signs of life had been snuffed out.

Rance has yet to go to trial, pleading not guilty to first-degree murder charges. But no criminal verdict can address the question both families demand an answer to: When two strangers with serious mental illness are assigned to live together under supervision and one ends up dead and the other locked away, who should be held accountable?

“It’s not like he took something, hit him over the head and the guy accidentally died,” said Rance’s mother, Tia Edwards. “He actually put his hands around the guy’s throat. That takes a minute, you know…

“I don’t think he was in his right mind.”

A year-long investigation by NJ Advance Media found a series of red flags that bring the arrangement into question. Rance’s mental health was deteriorating in the weeks before the killing. He had a documented history of paranoia — especially involving roommates. And he was diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, a condition that can cause impulsive and aggressive outbursts.

Both families say SERV erred in placing Rance and Majuri in the same minimally supervised living space, a contention supported by experts. And Frankie’s sisters, Donna and Doreen Majuri, allege the promised weekly check-ins at the condo were sporadic in the three months before their brother’s death — including a missed appointment the day before the killing.

SERV was “negligent in that they knew, or should have known, of the dangerous propensities” of Rance, who had a lengthy history of mental illness documented in SERV’s own files, the Majuri estate contends in a lawsuit.

“It is extremely difficult thinking about our brother, a peaceful man, meeting such a violent death,” Majuri’s sisters said in a statement to NJ Advance Media.

But the reverberations resonate far beyond one man’s killing.

An NJ Advance Media review of hundreds of pages of public records found a history of troubling allegations against SERV. They include improper care and lax supervision — despite the organization generating more than $25 million in net revenue between 2019 and 2022, according to tax records for its six not-for-profit entities.

Majuri’s death also exposes systemic weaknesses in the community mental health system. Some experts say he would be alive today if Rance had been temporarily hospitalized or monitored more closely in a group home, based on his behavior leading up to Majuri’s death.

In addition, the tragedy raises uncomfortable questions about the level of supervision and care provided to the more than 5,000 adults with severe mental illness across New Jersey. Yet the state’s Department of Human Services says it steps in only after something goes wrong with its contracted providers like SERV, monitoring for “egregious and ongoing” problems.

And the brutal killing underscores the worst fears of advocates who say the push to house people with serious mental illness in the community has gone too far. Wayne Police had been at the condo four times in the two months before Majuri’s death, including less than an hour before the strangling, reinforcing the troubling limitations of law enforcement when it intersects with mental health.

Every day, thousands of New Jerseyans like the two Franks — a vulnerable and misunderstood population often pushed to society’s margins — entrust their lives to an overburdened mental health system. But there’s staff shortages. Funding shortages. Housing shortages. Pressure to rack up billable hours. All in New Jersey, where the system is regarded as one of the nation’s best.

“It’s just a broken system that needs really, really big changes to happen,” said Audra Blickenstaff, a former SERV residential counselor who now works in education. The community mental health system Majuri and Rance relied on is “hanging on by a thread,” she said, “by hopes and dreams of people who really do care.”

SERV is deeply committed to the safety and security of the individuals in its care, the company said in a statement. It declined to provide direct responses to nearly 50 questions NJ Advance Media submitted in writing, citing the ongoing criminal case and company policy.

“We take seriously our role in fulfilling much-needed services within the community, and we hold ourselves to the highest standards,” the statement said. “We remain deeply saddened by the loss of Mr. Majuri, and we recognize the importance of honoring the legal process to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding his tragic death.”

Three years after the killing, there is no indication anyone beyond Rance and Majuri will pay a price for what happened that night. There have been no calls for reform. No politicians demanding an investigation. Frank Majuri was alive one day and dead the next.

The world didn’t seem to notice.

“Nobody cares except the families that are affected by it,” said Rosalyn Metzger, a mental health advocate whose sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia and lives in New Jersey. “It breaks my heart to think of all the people that could benefit from better care.”

On the phone with 911 that night, Rance says nothing of his dispute with Majuri. The operator asks Majuri’s age, and Rance seems unaware of the gravity of the situation, still focused on his missing check.

“I think he’s 60,” Rance says. “He could be lying about it. Like a lot of things he’s lying about.”

“And he’s your roommate?” the operator asks.

Rance’s response is chilling.

“He was.”

I. Two Franks

Officer William Hall arrived at 10:42 on the night of Frank Majuri’s death.

Rance was waiting at the door of a brick building wearing red athletic shorts and a personalized blue hockey jersey. He had called the cops to report a crime. He believed his Social Security check had been stolen.

“What’s his name, Frank?” Hall asked.

“Frank,” Rance said.

“No, his name?” Hall asked.

“Frank,” Rance said with annoyance.

Hall was one of Wayne’s newest officers, sworn in just 13 months earlier. He followed Rance inside and saw Majuri sitting at a cluttered dining room table in blue sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a gallon of milk next to him.

“Are you Frank?” Hall asked.

“Yeah. Two Franks,” Majuri said, holding up his fingers and gesturing to Rance as though the novelty hadn’t worn off after three months together. “Frank and Frank.”

The two Franks both had schizophrenia. But they arrived at 21 Hinchman Avenue, Apartment 1A, from starkly different paths.

Majuri enjoyed the advantages of growing up in suburban Passaic County, where his parents lived in Wayne’s Pine Lakes section with a tennis court in their backyard. Frankie played football at Wayne Hills High School in the late ‘70s and was known for driving a black “Smokey and the Bandit” Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with the iconic “Screaming Chicken” decal on the hood.

Then he had a mental breakdown at 19.

He became withdrawn and depressed, dropping out of Fairleigh Dickinson University after his first year. He didn’t understand what was happening as the symptoms of schizophrenia took hold.

“He could no longer function normally,” his sisters said in a statement. “All his hopes and dreams for a future for marriage, children and a career were lost.”

Majuri began receiving mental health treatment in the 1980s as his mother scoured library books to learn about his condition. He became a SERV client in the summer of 1996.

Before his parents died in the mid-2010s, Majuri spent most Saturdays with his father, playing the ponies at Meadowlands Racetrack. They would wake up the next morning and attend Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Pompton Lakes, typically followed by lunch at one of their favorite Italian restaurants.

Majuri, 60, had a full head of gray hair. He was 5-foot-8 and weighed 283 pounds, which his family attributes to one of his true loves: food. Frankie always raved after devouring a good meal. “This is so good,” he would gush after a bite of his sister’s home-cooked flounder and broccoli. “It’s restaurant quality.”

Rance, on the other hand, is a product of the system.

Born in Newark to a young mother battling addiction, he was abandoned by his father and raised by his aunt in Maryland until entering foster care around the age of 10, according to an account read in court. He was shuffled between five foster homes, where he says he was sexually abused.

Rance attended East Orange’s Clifford J. Scott School, where he told officials he was threatened by gang members. He was classified as emotionally disturbed and sent to an academy in Fairfield for special education services.

As an adult, Rance tracked down his mother, learning she had lived within walking distance for years. When the family gathered for his birthday in July 2017, he used his cell phone to record their farewell in front of a silver Subaru with bags of Popeyes resting on the hood.

As he filmed, his sister handed him a professional photograph of his smiling young niece and nephew.

“I’ll frame it,” Rance told her.

“Love you,” his sister said on her way into the car.

“Love you, too,” he replied, recording until his family nearly pulled away.

Adults with mental illness are often lonely and yearn for social interaction. They can also feel powerless, according to advocates. Groups like SERV tell them where they can live and who they can live with, wielding the authority of who stays in the program.

These adults are generally best served by having apartments of their own, eliminating the potential for conflict, said Robert Davison, CEO of the Mental Health Association of Essex and Morris.

But there’s not a single housing market in the country where someone on disability income can afford the fair market rent, according to Technical Assistance Collaborative, a nonprofit focused on housing issues among people with disabilities.

Instead, many people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders and other mental illnesses rely on partially subsidized housing programs that assign them one or more roommates. Availability is a major factor in determining placement.

So the two Franks were bonded by disability and inability. Then one night in November 2021, they found themselves at the center of a dispute that would destroy both their lives.

“Did you happen to see his Social Security check in the mail?” Hall asked Majuri in the body cam footage. “He’s saying that you saw it, and you tore it up and threw it in the trash.”

“If I saw his check, I’d give it to him,” Majuri said earnestly from his seat at the table. “You can look in the mailbox if you want.”

Hall repeatedly questioned Majuri, asking if he threw away any mail.

“He stole it,” Rance said calmly, standing a few feet behind his roommate.

“OK, he’s saying …” Hall began.

“Of course he’s saying that,” Rance interrupted, his frustration rising. “He stole it.”

Majuri had little more than an hour to live.

II. Paranoia

The voices started talking to Frank Rance when he was a boy.

They say confusing things, he later tells a doctor. Sometimes he talks back when no one is watching.

Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed between the late teens and early 30s. But doctors detected signs of serious mental illness in Rance around first grade, he has said, and sent him to residential treatment at age 7.

Schizophrenia isn’t how it’s portrayed in the movies. It doesn’t cause multiple personalities or condemn everyone who has it to a life of violence. If committed to taking their medication, many people are able to manage their symptoms, succeed in high-powered jobs, maintain romantic relationships and raise children, according to Stephen Scheinthal, chair of the psychiatry department at the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Overall, people with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than a perpetrator.

But schizophrenia is often the source of powerful delusions, false beliefs and hallucinations. There are several variations, such as paranoid, catatonic and undifferentiated, each producing its own set of symptoms. Schizophrenia affects about 1% of the population and can be a significant barrier to maintaining employment and living independently.

People diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, like Rance, typically have a better chance at a high functioning life, despite feelings of distrust, suspicion and fear of persecution, according to Scheinthal.

“If your loved one was to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, the best outcome diagnosis is actually paranoid,” he said.

Yet by November 2021, Rance had accumulated “a significant psychiatric history,” according to documents read in court.

He has been hospitalized for mental illness at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Overlook Medical Center, Trinitas Regional Medical Center, CareWell Health Medical Center and University Hospital, though the exact dates were not disclosed. During a stint at Essex County Hospital at age 19, he expressed “persecutory and grandiose delusional beliefs” that he worked for the FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, the government and the mafia. He told staff the KKK conducted experiments on him and he was a double agent owed $10 million for his work.

Doctors there described Rance as having “illogical, extremely disorganized, circumstantial and loosely associated thought processes.”

In a separate stay at Greystone, Rance was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and psychosis. He was also diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, a condition the Mayo Clinic describes as “repeated, sudden bouts of impulsive, aggressive, violent behavior or angry verbal outbursts.”

Similar to road rage or temper tantrums, “the reactions are too extreme for the situation.”

“It sounds like he had a very severe mental illness that unfortunately may not have the best prognosis,” Scheinthal told NJ Advance Media, based on Rance’s initial diagnosis at such a young age.

His mental illness was also referenced in records detailing his brushes with the law.

In 2009, Rance was cited for criminal mischief after Toms River Police say he threw rocks at three moving cars, shattering one window and damaging a windshield. Police reports from the incident indicated Rance was a resident of Dover Woods, a state-licensed residential health care facility in Toms River that is often home for patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals.

The charges were later dismissed.

Four years later, a man filed a citizens complaint with Winslow Police accusing Rance of simple assault. The charge was dismissed, court records show, with “Ancora” written in the comments section of the form.

Yet Hall knew none of this when he arrived at Rance’s condo about an hour before the killing. Just as the young police officer didn’t know that Rance in 2019 accused SERV of trying to brainwash him. Just as he didn’t know Rance, a few months before Majuri’s killing, reported that a former roommate would poison him.

Hall asked Rance to talk with him in the building hallway. He advised him to call the Social Security office on Monday and say he lost his check.

“No, he stole it,” Rance said, standing under a fluorescent light.

Majuri then popped out of the apartment.

“I’ll check it right now,” he said, the mailbox key jingling in his hand.

“What if he steals again?” Rance asked.

“There’s nothing in there,” Majuri hollered from the end of the hallway.

“What if he steals again?” Rance repeated, looking for an answer from Hall. “He’s the only person that has a key for the mailbox. They wouldn’t totally cut me off from Social Security.”

Majuri approached from the end of the hall, repeating that there’s nothing in the mailbox.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at Rance before disappearing back inside.

He would never step foot outside his home again.

III. Imperfect solution

The condo on Hinchman Avenue doesn’t look like much.

Sparsely decorated white walls. A small television. A bookshelf, a couch and a loveseat.

But the home of Frank Rance and Frank Majuri was an 889-square-foot safe haven between two terrifying worlds.

Poverty and homelessness loomed on one side. Dehumanizing captivity in a group home or psychiatric facility on the other.

Partially subsidized units like this are called supportive housing. And advocates say programs like these are the best opportunity adults with serious mental illness have to be integrated into society and enjoy a full life.

Majuri volunteered at the Bloomingdale Free Public Library and sat in the main hallway greeting everyone who came by during his break. He went to Weight Watchers meetings on Wednesdays, celebrated holidays with his family and enjoyed free local concerts in the summer.

Rance attended an adult day program at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus and, before COVID hit, worked at a local car wash. He once went into the city with a friend to catch a Knicks game from nosebleed seats at Madison Square Garden.

“You get a person in housing, (and) you wrap the services around them,” said Debbie Plotnick, a lobbyist for Mental Health America, a national nonprofit that endorses supportive housing. “The services increase in intensity as needed and decrease in intensity as the situation warrants.”

At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

When Majuri was born in 1961, people with schizophrenia were still likely to be locked in an asylum. Then came The Community Mental Health Act of 1963, freeing thousands of adults from institutions and establishing a system of community mental health care.

But few who emptied out of psychiatric hospitals had the family support or financial resources to afford housing, even if they didn’t need 24-hour supervision, mental health advocates say. Some ended up on the streets, following a well-worn path to addiction, prison or death. Others moved to group homes and suffered similarly shocking neglect or abuse as in institutions.

“The problem, as with a lot of things that happen in government at all levels, is that you deinstitutionalize, but you don’t build a support system,” said Robert Louden, a former New York City police officer and professor emeritus at Georgian Court University. “It’s kind of a snowball effect down the road.”

By the 1990s, supportive housing emerged as the new model.

When it works, it’s everything the community mental health system is supposed to be: Humane. Cost effective. Largely invisible to the rest of the society. Its residents are less likely to flood emergency departments, get arrested or be hospitalized than those left on their own, according to Kevin Martone, a former deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services.

Today, New Jersey contracts with SERV Centers of New Jersey Inc. and 38 other providers to offer such programs, according to the state Department of Human Services.

Some residents require a 30-minute daily check-in to make sure they are paying bills and taking their medication. Others are seen once a week or once a month as outlined in their individualized recovery plan, according to Nora Barrett, an associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Health Professions.

Residents cover part of the rent through Social Security — Majuri paid $600 a month — and the rest is government subsidized, Martone said.

While Majuri’s tragic death is an outlier, mental health advocates say no one can pinpoint when a resident’s mental health will nosedive. People can thrive for years then relapse.

“These are incredibly hard situations to predict,” Scheinthal said. “But yet there’s an expectation from the public that these acts are all predictable and preventable.”

And every recommendation mental health workers make on the front lines is subject to second-guessing by someone thinking about a quarterly profit sheet, according to Blickenstaff.

“You can have 20 degrees in mental health, but you can never predict with accuracy what someone’s going to do,” she said.

But groups like SERV are still responsible for their clients’ well-being.

IV. Little oversight?

A resident killing his roommate would have been unthinkable once.

At least that was the case when Jelena Stojanovic-Radic last worked for SERV in 2011, according to the former clinical coordinator, who supervised counselors for supportive housing units in Trenton.

She was stunned when she heard about Majuri’s death.

But there’s always a risk of tragedy in a mental health system that must balance individual rights versus personal and community safety, according to Davison.

Majuri’s death raises significant questions about how that trust is earned, how far it should extend and at what point the state assumes accountability for an innocent man’s grisly death.

SERV was founded in 1974 by families and mental health providers caring for adult loved ones with serious and persistent mental illness, according to its website. It now bills itself as the largest not-for-profit provider of residential behavioral health services in New Jersey.

SERV has grown into a collection of at least six related, not-for-profit organizations, employing about 800 people and operating in 11 counties. It runs group homes for people with mental illness. Achievement centers for clients with developmental disabilities. Supervised housing like Rance and Majuri’s condo unit.

But a closer examination reveals a checkered history. In fact, a series of unsettling cases calls into question the quality of support some vulnerable adults receive.

In January 2010, a 33-year-old man in SERV’s supportive housing program died by suicide in a Wayne apartment. He set himself on fire atop a pile of toilet paper, paper towels and tissues in the kitchen, according to police. Neighbors were concerned he didn’t receive enough supervision, they told journalists in the aftermath of the fire. A SERV official rejected the notion that warning signs were missed.

“SERV very well could have dropped the ball. I don’t know,” Davison said. “But I also know with this population, they could have done everything right within best practice guidelines, and tragically, the gentleman completed a suicide nonetheless.”

Nine years later, a woman was improperly allowed to leave a SERV group home in Paterson, according to a lawsuit filed against the organization. She fled to New York City, where she jumped in front of a subway train trying to kill herself. She survived, but needed both legs amputated, the suit said. The matter has yet to be resolved in court.

Another unresolved lawsuit alleges SERV retaliated against and eventually terminated a former residential health manager who raised concerns about other employees sleeping on the job, administering medication incorrectly and smoking marijuana in a group home for five adults with intellectual disabilities.

The suit, filed in January, claims some SERV employees administered the wrong medicine or intentionally denied residents necessary medication in order to avoid paperwork. Staff also neglected residents’ injuries, sending them to bed with open lacerations and debris in their wounds, the suit alleges.

The company’s financial management has also come under scrutiny.

In 2014, SERV’s former chief operations officer was arrested on charges he illegally used a corporate account and credit card to pay for more than $14,000 in groceries and furniture for his personal use.

In September 2000, federal and state agents raided SERV’s offices in Trenton and East Brunswick after allegations of Medicaid fraud. However, the state Attorney General’s office said it was unable to provide any information about the outcome of the investigation, and no records of the resolution can be found in its online system.

And in 2020, a former residential counselor sued SERV, alleging she was denied transfers and assigned demeaning tasks after she objected to billing Medicaid for people who weren’t actually in the group home. The suit was settled earlier this year.

The mental health system in general pressures frontline workers to prioritize billable hours, said Barrett, the Rutgers professor, sometimes at the expense of clients’ needs.

New Jersey’s Department of Human Services monitors groups like SERV through routine inspections, stepping in after problems are identified. The state can revoke a license or contract in instances where “noncompliance is egregious and ongoing,” according to spokesman Tom Hester, who declined to comment on Majuri’s death.

But that’s far too late when something goes horribly wrong.

The state keeps a “light oversight footprint,” granting SERV and other providers autonomy to make challenging decisions about clients, according to Davison.

“The state just doesn’t have the staff to monitor daily operations, and one would argue they probably shouldn’t do it even if they did have the staff,” he said. “If the provider is licensed and meets all the standards, there has to be some trust in the operations.”

Despite its legal and financial management issues, SERV remains a key cog in New Jersey’s supportive housing system. The state renewed its contract with the organization after Majuri’s death for two more years and $27.9 million.

“Everybody talks about throwing money at mental health,” Metzger said. “But where does the money go and what does it do? And who’s supervising that money? Who’s overseeing it? It’s a critical, critical issue.”

SERV Centers of New Jersey Inc. — the not-for-profit arm specifically providing residential care for adults with serious and persistent mental illness — generated $14.3 million in net revenue between 2019 and 2022, according to an NJ Advance Media analysis of its most recent available tax forms. Not-for-profit groups like SERV do sometimes build a surplus for capital improvements, long-term investments and rainy day funds, according to Martone.

Yet SERV’s executives also are well-paid.

In the same year Frankie was killed, SERV President Regina Widdows was awarded $175,000 in bonus and incentive pay, pushing her total annual compensation to $558,356. Valerie Dion, SERV’s legal officer, made $221,822 in 2021. SERV Centers of New Jersey Inc. CEO Pauline Simms made $205,837. And some senior vice presidents earned more than $150,000.

Though SERV is a large organization, Widdows’ salary is “definitely significant” in a field where many employees are modestly paid, according to Barrett.

“That really surprises me,” she said. “I have to tell you that the pressure to bring in the revenue is more often closer to keeping the lights on than it is to pay somebody $500,000 a year.”

Majuri’s estate accuses SERV of negligence and of “reckless disregard of the likelihood of serious harm,” according to its lawsuit. It also alleges the organization “failed to take adequate precautions” to protect him.

Proceedings are stayed until the criminal case is resolved.

The past allegations against SERV and its role in supervising Rance and Majuri raise more questions than answers, Davison said.

Did SERV know about Rance’s delusions? Was it confident he could safely live on his own? Did his sleeping issues, calls to police and paranoia about Majuri completely slip through the cracks?

Or was SERV itself worried about Rance? Did it have him evaluated for civil commitment? Did a mental health screener tell SERV that Rance was not a danger to himself or others?

“If I was going to testify as an expert witness, I would have to have a lot of questions answered before I could render any type of opinion,” Davision said.

“It’s a horrible, tragic situation. I can say that.”

V. Tragedy

Rance first called the Wayne Police Department to the condo 55 days before the killing.

He reported on Sept. 11, 2021, that he had received texts from the FBI and needed an officer to see the messages in person. The texts were determined to be spam, and a Wayne officer taught Rance how to block the number.

Police noted on the incident report that the address is a “group home.”

On Sept. 26 — 40 days before the killing — Rance called police again and reported that his previous roommate was harassing him and impersonating an FBI agent. He had received two calls that morning that he believed came from his former roommate.

Police verified that the calls came from another source, who is redacted in their report. They told Rance there was no evidence of harassment.

Officer Kimberly Fryer wrote in her incident report that Rance showed signs of something, based on her training and experience, but her determination is redacted. Lawyers for Majuri’s family said police described him as exhibiting “irrational paranoia.”

On Oct. 7 — 29 days before the killing — Rance called police to report that his mail had been stolen, including his Social Security check and a check with lottery winnings.

It was 4:17 a.m.

“He told me he couldn’t sleep at night,” his mother said.

Cops are often the first responders in a mental health crisis, even when they have little to no training in handling people with delusions.

But the funding and training — let alone the political will — to improve law enforcement’s response to mental health crises isn’t always there, experts say.

“Government just doesn’t want to fund any of this,” Metzger said. “Because, typically, people with mental illness don’t vote.”

But Rance’s constellation of mental illness likely would have been a challenge for any police officer.

He was taking eight medications, according to Edwards.

He was prescribed two antipsychotics, a weight loss drug, a water pill, thyroid medication, a diuretic, blood pressure medication and an anti-diabetic medication, she said, spelling the names of his prescriptions over the phone. He was trusted to administer the medication on his own, according to records read in court.

“He was going through changes. And, you know, when you can’t sleep, it’s almost like you’re delusional,” Edwards said.

A lack of sleep. The 4 a.m. police call over missing mail. The delusions that roommates wanted to poison him or harass him. Individually, each behavior can be common among people with schizophrenia, experts said. Yet, in hindsight, all were indicators that Rance needed to be closely monitored.

“There’s a guy that should have been living in his own apartment,” Barrett said. “If there’s already a history of paranoia about roommates and all that stuff, that was not a good idea to have him living with a roommate.”

Metzger, the advocate whose sister has schizophrenia, said Rance should have been in a fully supervised setting until his medication was adjusted.

Leaving him in the condo with Majuri was “like putting a can of gasoline in with a match,” she said. “You know, that just doesn’t work.”

Once Rance called 911 on Nov. 5 and insisted Majuri had taken his check, he should have received on-site supervision until he was screened and possibly admitted to the hospital, according to Stojanovic-Radic, the former SERV clinical coordinator.

“I think the main thing was not to leave these people alone,” she said. “There has to be a hyper vigilance almost around working with people with major mental illness.”

Majuri’s parents wanted him to live independently and worried what would happen to him after they were gone, according to his family.

“My parents and myself trusted SERV,” Donna Majuri said. “I always believed that SERV would keep my brother safe.”

But it failed to regularly monitor what was happening at the condo, according to Majuri’s sisters.

New Jersey has no minimum mandate for the frequency of check-ins with supervised housing residents, according to the state Department of Human Services.

The staff responsible for visiting the apartments aren’t well paid — sometimes earning as little as $40,000 a year — and might need two or three jobs to make ends meet, according to Barrett, who used to run training sessions in Rutgers’ department of psychiatric rehabilitation and counseling professions.

They generally don’t have any clinical training, making it difficult to pick up on subtleties that could be a sign of a relapse or a resident going off medication.

“The hard part is it can look like anything,” Scheinthal said. “It could be like, ‘Wait, why have you lost 20 pounds?’ Oh, because the food is poisoned.”

The Majuri family also sued the Wayne Police, alleging Hall left without taking adequate precautions to protect Majuri and strayed from standard procedure by failing to call for additional assistance to deal with the dispute.

A judge dismissed the suit, and three police experts interviewed by NJ Advance Media said Hall responded appropriately based on the information he had in real time. Without signs of imminent physical violence, there was no reason for Hall to expect Rance would kill Majuri after he left.

“I really think this is a failure on the mental health side, not the police side,” said Brian Higgins, a lecturer at John Jay College and retired Bergen County Police chief. “(I) would focus on the organization that, one, should be supervising, and, two, who made the decision to put those two people together.”

Louden, the former New York City police officer, offered a similar assessment. SERV likely “mismatched these roommates or didn’t do a great deal of follow-up with them,” he said.

Richard Rivera, a former cop and law enforcement reformer, said he would have approached the call thinking Rance and Majuri “must have been vetted, right? A professional mental health provider understood the dynamics and put these two guys in the same apartment.”

Ideally, Hall would have arrived at the condo with a mental health professional, called SERV before leaving or reached out to a local mobile response unit that could have screened Rance, mental health advocates say.

But Hall doesn’t know Rance’s full history when he arrives at the condo. And body cam footage from his response shows no indication that he attempts to reach SERV. He appeared to be responding to only what he saw in front of him.

“You’re going to be civil with him?” Hall asked, sensing Rance’s annoyance. “There’s not going to be any arguments when I leave? I know it’s frustrating.”

Rance shrugged, then turned his head slowly from side to side. He shrugged again and looked to the right.

He shrugged a final time, but said nothing until Hall finished speaking.

“What’s stopping him from stealing again?” Rance said.

About 55 minutes later, Hall raced back to Hinchman Avenue in his squad car. Rance was pacing outside the building.

“What’s going on, Frank?” Hall called out.

“Uhhhhh… I’d say it didn’t go so well,” Rance replied.

“What didn’t go so well?” Hall asked.

Rance danced around an answer.

“Frank didn’t go so well,” he said as they push through the building’s front door.

“Did you guys get physical?” Hall asked.

“Yes, we did,” Rance said.

He led Hall into the apartment.

“Frank?” the officer called out.

Ten seconds passed in silence as Hall walked into the living room.

“Frank,” Hall then said futilely, crouching over Majuri’s body and checking for a pulse.

“Frank …”

“Frank …”

VI. ‘Who’s in charge?’

Majuri is still on the floor, now covered with a white sheet.

Rance has been handcuffed, read his rights and led into the back of a police cruiser. Three Wayne officers conference inside 21 Hinchman Avenue.

“Do we have any contact for the … ” one officer begins. “Like, who is in charge?”

It’s a question both families need answered.

Edwards didn’t know her son was arrested until four days later. One of her daughters called and said Frank wasn’t responding to messages. Then the family found his image staring back at them from beneath a New York Post headline.

“Frank would never, never have done anything like that,” his mother said.

Not if he were in his right mind, she didn’t need to add.

“For him to just commit murder?” Edwards said. “Come on.”

During his time in jail, Rance has tried to kill himself, according to the judge in his criminal case, and in 2023, was charged with aggravated assault of a corrections officer on Christmas Day. His public defender indicated she’s exploring a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Rance has been deemed competent to stand trial, but no date has been set.

If he attempts an insanity defense, his lawyer will need to prove he either didn’t know what he was doing at the time or didn’t know that strangling someone to death is wrong, said Stuart Green, a professor at Rutgers Law School. But the “tiny sliver” of insanity pleas that succeed in the courtroom is “vanishingly small,” he added.

People found not guilty by reason of insanity typically spend more time locked in an institution than those who are convicted of murder spend in prison, mental health experts say.

Martone calls the potential outcomes “visible failures” of the mental health system.

But if the system failed Frank Rance, what did it do to the other Frank?

Donna Majuri takes a deep breath in the cold November air. It’s 4:15 a.m., and she has to tell her sister, Doreen, that their brother is dead.

Frankie had a cup of tea at Doreen’s earlier that night, a final moment between siblings who bonded over countless Sunday dinners. Now the police watch from Doreen’s porch as his devastated sisters fall into each other’s arms.

Frankie was everything they could have asked for in a brother. Kind. Honest. Good-hearted. He asked for so little in life. Frankie never complained about anything.

“He killed my brother?” Doreen asks in horrified disbelief. “No, it can’t be.”

The Majuri family would like to see a “Frank’s Law,” sweeping legislation to prevent a tragedy like their brother’s from happening again. But even mental health advocates aren’t sure where to begin.

“It’s a tremendous, tremendous dilemma for society as a whole,” Metzger said. “And it depends on how much will there is in society to treat these people with kindness and help them get better rather than just put them to the side and let them get on with it.”

Before Rance called 911 to report Majuri’s death, he heard a knock on his door.

He thought someone heard him screaming at Majuri and notified the police. But, instead, it was a familiar face.

A neighbor handed him his mail. It had been delivered to the wrong home.