Mary Ann Collura

On His Own

Farrell was on his own as he chased Marti north past the factories and warehouses on Route 20 North at speeds that Farrell later estimated reached 110 miles per hour. At one point, Farrell said, he considered calling off the chase. "I was thinking about it," Farrell said. "I was like, he's just not on file. He's probably got some warrants and that was that."

Just then, however, Marti — or his passenger, Ivan, authorities are not sure whom — did something that convinced Farrell to keep up the pursuit. A baggie filled with what Farrell — even at that speed and in the comparative darkness — recognized as dope came flying out of Marti's car window. "It hit the windshield of my car," Farrell said.

Convinced that there was probably good reason for the suspect to want to elude police, Farrell kept up the chase, tailing Marti as he made the treacherous right hand turn onto the Morlot Avenue Bridge that linked the hardscrabble industrial section of eastern Paterson with the elm lined boulevards of suburban Fair Lawn. "We made the turn, it was pretty tough but we got through it," Farrell recalled. In fact, the chase had now turned seriously dangerous. "He almost has a head on with another car. It was on the bridge heading the other way."

Broadway Baptist Church

Even that didn't slow Marti down. Less than a mile down the road, however, Morlot Avenue abruptly ends at River Road, an intersection dominated by the sprawling lawn of the Van Riper-Ellis/Broadway Baptist Church. The way Farrell remembers it, Marti rocketed across the intersection, and his car jumped the curb, veered to the right, narrowly missing the large, colonial style brick before grinding at last to a halt in the middle of the grassy, open expanse. As he had been for miles, Farrell was right on his tail. A moment later, Victor Marti Jr. who had observed the whole chase from the beginning followed. He didn't stop, Gallucio told New Jersey Monthly, but turned around and headed home to Passaic.

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1. Point Blank
2. Holy Thursday
3. As If He Never Was
4. Small Time
5. An Easy Shift
6. An Act of Courage
7. Last Call
8. The Prodigal Son Returns
9. Not So Innocent
10. A Routine Stop
11. The Chase Begins
12. On His Own
13. Show Down
14. In the Killer's Eyes
15. "Oh, God!"
16. Marti's Flight
17. Legacy
18. Bibliography