Somber gathering

SUSSEX — Thirteen years to the day after James Coursen Jr. was discovered drowned in Cove Creek, a man has been charged in his death. The Sussex County Prosecutor's Office charged Jerry Vandermark with manslaughter on June 4.

Vandermark, of Franklin, has been doing time at Northern State Prison in Newark on a different charge since 2008 and is expected to face the manslaughter charge in Sussex County in about six weeks.

Prosecutors say Vandermark assaulted Coursen, knocked him unconscious and then rolled him into the creek, where he later drowned.

Vandermark, then 19, believed the 51-year-old Coursen had $300, according to First Assistant Prosecutor Greg Mueller. The incident that led to Coursen's death occurred on about June 1, 1999. "The two men were in the same area by the Newton Avenue Bridge in Sussex Borough," Mueller said this week in a telephone interview. Vandermark "tried to steal the money from Mr. Coursen and Mr. Coursen resisted."

Coursen's family received word of the manslaughter charge last week and assembled a group of some 40 friends and family who gathered Sunday at the site where they'd originally found his body. Leaning over the Newton Avenue Bridge, they tossed flowers into the creek and held up balloons on which they'd written Thinking of You. A small crew waded out through the creek to place a memorial at the spot where Coursen had died.

More than a dozen years back Coursen was reported missing on June 1, 1999 by several concerned family members, Mueller said. A search party was organized by Coursen's family and it was this group that ultimately found him lying in Cove Creek, about 30 yards south of the bridge, on June 4, 1999.

"Initially the cause of death was listed as asphyxiation by drowning and the manner was deemed to be accidental," Mueller said.

But Coursen's family always felt otherwise, said his nephew Tucker Coursen.

However, it wasn't until 2008, as they investigated another case, that prosecutors received new information that would ultimately lead to the charge in Coursen's death against Vandermark. That one involved a man who was assaulted by Vandermark in 2007 and thrown into the Wallkill River in Hamburg. That victim lived.

"As we were investigating the assault in 2007 at the Wallkill River, that's when we learned additional information about what happened to Mr. Coursen."

As this new evidence surfaced, Detective Paul Mueller was assigned to reinvestigate the case, said Prosecutor Mueller. Over the ensuing four years, "substantial additional evidence was developed," he said. A different medical examiner reviewed the evidence and decided the manner of death should be considered "undetermined and not accidental," Prosecutor Mueller said. (The two Muellers are not related.)

Following that, the Prosecutor's Office was able to build its case around evidence it gathered that led them to put Vandermark and Coursen in the same location and to further charge the younger man in the older man's death.

The two men and members of their families had known each other for many years, Mueller said.

"Jerry Vandermark is in prison serving an eight-year sentence for aggravated assault and leaving an injured victim back in 2007." According to information from the New Jersey Department of Corrections, Vandermark will be eligible for parole on April 12, 2013. His maximum release date is Oct. 5, 2015. Should either of those situations happen, a judge would set bail in connection with this newest charge, Mueller said. At this point bail has not been implemented as Vandermark is in prison.

The next step in the Coursen charge, however, brings Vandermark up from Newark to the Sussex County Courthouse in about six weeks, "at which point the state will extend a plea offer."

What does the Prosecutor's Office hope for this case?

"Certainly we believe that a solid case was developed over the course of the past four years and we certainly hope that a just outcome will occur," Mueller said.