Adrian Gustus and Segmund Boyd
The housekeeper for a 65-year-old Red Bank man says her jealous estranged husband only wanted to scare her boss by robbing him at his home.
But the robbery turned into a killing.
Testifying at a Red Bank City Court hearing this week, Crystal Williams said that, during the July 28 robbery, she didn't know that one of the robbers -- a man in a mask -- was her husband, Segmund Boyd. But she said she recognized the second man as Adrian Gustus, a friend of her husband's.
She and her boss, Winston Gant, the father-in-law of state Rep. Gerald McCormick, were walking out the back door of his business/home in Red Bank a little before 1 a.m., headed to Walmart, when they were confronted by Boyd and Gustus, Williams testified. During the robbery, Gant was shot in the leg, she said.
Gant later died from the wound, a medical examiner's report said.
Williams testified that Boyd was envious of the time she spent at Gant's house and suspected the pair were romantically involved. She said they weren't.
After listening to testimony from Williams and others, Red Bank City Judge Johnny Houston sent charges of felony murder, especially aggravated robbery and robbery against both Gustus, 38, and Boyd, 39, to the grand jury.
According to Williams, when the men ordered her and Gant to the ground, she got down and one of the men took her purse. Gant, the owner of Gant's Towing at 2401 Briggs Ave., refused to get on the ground and the men punched him several times in the face before she heard a gunshot and saw them flee, she said.
Gant said, "My leg," and gave Williams his house keys so she could call 911.
Williams testified that Gustus threatened to kill her and her family the night of the shooting if she told police he was involved and later came by her home to threaten her again.
A few weeks after the shooting, Boyd came to Williams' new workplace at Southern Restaurant on Dayton Boulevard and told her he was in the man in the mask the night of the robbery and he was going to turn himself in, she testified.
Red Bank police Sgt. Steve Hope corroborated much of what Williams said during the hearing. In early interviews, Hope said, Williams did not tell police about Gustus or Boyd, but later told what she knew after Boyd turned himself in.
She said she only interacted with Boyd while exchanging their 2-year-old son; the pair hadn't lived together for at least eight months before the shooting.
Gustus' appointed attorney, Jeffrey Schaarschmidt, questioned why Williams was at Gant's home so early in the morning.
She said she often cleaned Gant's home late at night because that was when he finished his towing jobs and was awake. She also worked temp jobs during the day at the time, she said.