Victim Jennifer Bongco FACEBOOK PHOTO
WINSLOW TOWNSHIP, New Jersey — A pizza deliveryman found 41-year-old Filipina nurse, Jennifer Bongco, lying in the street and covered in multiple stab wounds after midnight on July 25. She was later declared dead.
Her boyfriend, 52-year-old Kevin Ambrose, was arrested on murder charges less than 24 hours later after police found him at Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino, Ambrose had been living with the victim, in her Winslow Township home when the alleged attack occurred.
Authorities said Bongco’s five-year-old daughter witnessed the murder and gave a recorded statement to investigators. The girl watched as Ambrose beat her mother to death, police have said.
After witnessing the attack, Bongco’s daughter Jessica Frantes pounded on her home’s front door and the terrified child told her 19-year-old sister, “Mommy is dead!” the South Jersey Times reported.
Before her mother’s death, the little girl was seen on camera with Bongco and Ambrose as they left a convenience store around 12:20 a.m., according to a probable cause statement.
At 12:29 a.m., police were sent to the home after receiving a 911 call. The female caller told police that she had heard a banging at the door and opened it to find Jessica with blood on her clothes, saying that her mother had been killed.
Jessica later gave a recorded statement to detectives and told them “Kevin hurt Mommy” after the couple started arguing inside the car, police said.
Her mother ran out of the vehicle and Ambrose started hitting her, she told authorities.
Ambrose then drove the girl back to the house and made her walk to the front door, the Courier-Post reported.
“I just saw her covered in blood,” the girl’s sister, Maria Bongco, said. “I knew she wasn’t hurt because the first thing she said was, ‘Mommy’s on the ground. Kevin killed her’.”
Police have not said if they have found a murder weapon.
Ambrose has been charged with murder and his bail has been set at $2 million, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
Accused attacker Kevin Ambrose FACEBOOK PHOTO
Ambrose only has one previous criminal charge — a drugs charge from 2014. His Facebook page suggests he has several grown children.
Maria expressed her pain on her Facebook page. “Mommy I love you more than anything in this world,” she wrote. “I’m nowhere near ready to live a life without you. Please always stay with me. I never imagined this day would come so soon. Not for another 50 years at least. I love you so so much & I just want you back here with me.”
Speaking to the Courier-Post, Maria added that she and her sister had never liked Ambrose. “He was nasty,” she said. “He would just scream at me and my sister all the time.”