Prosecutor: Area Man Gets 30 Years for Killing Father, Desecrating Remains

An area man has been sentenced to 30 years in state prison for killing his father and then hiding the body in the home the men shared, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago announced on Friday.

Kenneth H. Knapp Jr., 33, of Matawan, was sentenced on Thursday, April 18, by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Henry P. Butehorn.

At 12:35 p.m. on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Matawan police responded to a home to conduct a welfare check on the victim, 58-year-old Kenneth Knapp Sr., after friends and family members had been unsuccessful in contacting him over the previous week.

In the home’s basement, police found Knapp’s body, wrapped and bound inside a tarp, hidden inside a large plastic container.

A cooperative investigation by detectives of the Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Bureau and the Matawan Police Department revealed that Knapp, a former collegiate wrestler, had assaulted and killed his father in the home’s bathroom a week earlier before hiding his body in the basement.

He was taken into custody in Somerset County on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, then held at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution (MCCI).

Earlier this year, Knapp pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree aggravated manslaughter and second-degree desecration of human remains.

Judge Butehorn sentenced him to 25 years in state prison on the manslaughter charge and a consecutive five years on the desecration charge, with the former term subject to the provisions of New Jersey’s No Early Release Act (NERA), which mandates that 85 percent be served prior to the possibility of parole.

— Edited press release from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office