Investigators Suspect Homicide in Fatal Fire Case

The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office has released the name of the woman whose body was found in a charred North Middletown house following a fire on early Tuesday morning, and announced the case is being investigated as a homicide. 

According to Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Marc LeMieux, the woman who was found dead in the charred bungalow at 160 Jersey Avenue was Lynn Moretti, 40, of Middletown. 

He declined to provide further details in the case, saying his office is still working on its final report. "The case is being investigated as a homicide," LeMieux said Thursday afternoon. 

On Tuesday, a fire was reported to police around 1:30 a.m. The small street was filled with ambulances and fire engines battling the blaze for several house on the densely occupied block, facing Route 36.

In an interview with Patch later that day, next door neighbor David Echeverria said he was awakened by a "loud bang, like firecrackers" and fire trucks in front of his home in the dark of night. "I was pretty scared when I saw the saw flames shooting out of the house," he said, looking at the burned out house just a few feet away from his. "They were as tall as that tree behind the house."

He grabbed his dog Oatmeal and pounded on his grandfather Wilfredo Gonzalez's door, who lives next to him on the other side. Together they directed a hose onto David's house, but the heat of the fire melted portions of the siding on his house, and on the other neighboring house. 

Echeverria said his grandmother Gloria Gonzalez saw a body taken out of the house around 4:30 a.m.  

He said he did not know the woman who rented the house at 160 Jersey very well.

This story was updated at 5 p.m. Thursday with the name of the victim and the information it is being investigated as a homicide.

Check back for more details as they become available.