LONG BRANCH — A Long Branch man was charged this afternoon with setting fire to the car that contained the body of a Manchester man who went missing for two days after dropping off his daughter. Anthony Morris, 31, was the third person charged in connection with the death of Stephen Moore, 42, said Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin....
Anthony Morris.LONG BRANCH — A Long Branch man was charged this afternoon with setting fire to the car that contained the body of a Manchester man who went missing for two days after dropping off his daughter.
Anthony Morris, 31, was the third person charged in connection with the death of Stephen Moore, 42, said Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin.
Valentin said Moore’s former father-in-law, Thomas Dorsett, paid Morris an undisclosed amount of money to burn the car.
Morris, who is being held in the Monmouth County jail in Freehold on $500,000 bail, was charged with arson for hire, tampering with physical evidence, desecrating human remains, hindering apprehension and conspiracy to commit arson and/or desecration of human remains, Valentin said.
He said Thomas Dorsett knew Morris through his course of business but he was not an employee.
The prosecutor’s office today also filed against Thomas Dorsett two additional charges: arson for hire and conspiracy to commit arson, Valentin said. His bail was increased to $3 million cash.
Moore who was divorced from Dorsett’s daughter Kathleen Dorsett on June 1, had not been seen since dropping off the couple’s 20-month-old daughter at his ex-wife’s house in Ocean Township on Aug. 16.
A co-worker at the Eatontown car dealership where Moore was a salesman called police when he did not show up for work that day.
His body was found two days later in the trunk of his mother’s beige 2001 Nissan Altima which was engulfed in flames at Seaview and Long Branch avenues in Long Branch.
Thomas Dorsett, 64, who owns an air conditioning repair business, was served with charges hours after being hospitalized on Tuesday with an undisclosed condition. That was the same day his daughter, a third-grade teacher at the Gables Elementary School in Neptune appeared in Superior Court in Freehold.
She is charged with one count of murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence. Her father also faces one count of murder, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and one count of tampering with a witness.
Previous coverage:
• Father-in-law is charged in killing of Manchester man found in burning car
• Ex-wife is charged in slaying of Manchester man found in burning car
• Authorities identify man found in trunk of burning car in Long Branch