New Jersey moms stared down the emotionless teen accused of running down their daughters as his lawyer pleaded not guilty and floated an insanity defense.
Vincent Battiloro stood handcuffed in a khaki jail jumpsuit, grey t-shirt, and slippers Monday in a Union County courtroom in Elizabeth, his face blank while two mothers sobbed and fixed their eyes on him.
The 18-year-old from Garwood is charged as an adult with two counts of first-degree murder in the September 2025 deaths of Maria Niotis and Isabella Salas, both 17-year-old Cranford High School seniors struck while riding e-bikes on a quiet Cranford street, the New York Post reported.
Defense lawyer Rubin Sinins entered the not-guilty plea for him. Outside court, the girls’ mothers made plain they intend to keep pressure on every part of the case.
Maria Salas, mother of Isabella, spoke through tears in a shirt reading “Justice for Bella and Maria.”
"We will fight like h*** until they get the justice they deserve."
Foula Niotis, mother of Maria, described a grief that has not eased with time.
"It’s harder and harder every day. I just wish I could bring her back. But I know I can’t. So I have to get justice for her and Bella. It’s the only way, because I believe that’s where their souls will rest as well."
Police said Battiloro’s Jeep was traveling 70 mph in a 25 mph zone when it hit the girls. Prosecutors alleged a deliberate sequence, not a random crash.
They claimed he drove toward one of the girls’ homes near Burnside Avenue in Cranford, parked until he saw the pair on bikes, made a U-turn, and raced at them. Both died.
Prosecutors also said that when Battiloro first spoke to police, he claimed an armed, masked person had carjacked him. His own dash-camera footage, they said, showed he was driving the Jeep Compass.
If convicted, he faces up to life in prison. He was 17 at the time of the crash and was first charged as a juvenile before adult charges came in June.
The courtroom confrontation was only part of the fight the families say they are still waging. Their lawyers are demanding a full public accounting of what police did, and did not do, before and right after the crash.
Brent Bramnick, the Niotis family lawyer, pressed again for body-camera video and for a clear record of the night’s handling. He has alleged Battiloro was arrested the day of the incident after fleeing on foot, then released without charge hours later to his father.
"Show us what happened that night, when allegedly, the defendant’s father came to the scene, and he was let go."
Bramnick said the families still lack the camera footage a year later.
"Right now, we don’t have anybody’s cams, and it’s a year later. That’s concerning. Where are the body cams? Why are we not looking at them? The public has a right to know what happened before this incident. What led up to this?"
The Niotis family has claimed Battiloro stalked Maria for months and that they reported it to police without meaningful intervention. In the weeks before the killings, Battiloro’s own parents made four calls to police about juvenile problems, including an allegation he sprayed his father in the face with mace and stole his car.
Those prior contacts matter to the families because of who the Battiloros are. Jeffrey Battiloro, the defendant’s father, is a retired Chatham Borough police officer. An uncle has been described as police chief in nearby Westfield. Family lawyers have questioned whether those ties shaped the early response.
In a joint statement, the families asked the state attorney general to investigate all law-enforcement dealings and interactions with Vincent Battiloro and his family and to make the findings public.
Sinins indicated the defense is considering an insanity claim and said he would seek to have the case tried in another jurisdiction. Lawyers for the defense have also pointed toward a possible diminished-capacity theory.
Cory Rothbort, lawyer for the Salas family, said the relatives were ready for that path.
"That’s their strategy. That’s their tactic. We prepared the families for that."
None of that changes the core record prosecutors have put forward: two dead high-school seniors, a Jeep allegedly driven at nearly three times the speed limit, a carjacking story undercut by dash-cam video, and a defendant now pleading not guilty as an adult.
Battiloro offered no public statement of his own in the Elizabeth courtroom. The mothers did the speaking, first with their eyes in the gallery, then with their demand for justice and for records they say should already be in the open.
Two girls are gone. The charges are first-degree murder. Stone-faced silence in a jumpsuit does not answer the speed, the U-turn, the prior police calls, or the missing cameras. Accountability starts with the full file, in public, without special treatment for anyone’s last name.
