PATERSON, N.J., Feb. 2 (UPI) -- A New Jersey man was gunned down as he waited for his girlfriend outside a funeral home where she was attending a homicide victim's wake, police said.
Conrad Bishop, 25, of West New York, died Thursday night outside the Martinez Funeral Home in Paterson, The Record of Hackensack reported. Manny Martinez, the funeral director, said he saw Bishop lying on the street in a pool of blood with money blowing around him.
Bishop's girlfriend had been in the funeral home, one of the few people at a wake for Chrismely Hildago, 22, who was found strangled in Newark Sunday.
"It was surreal," Martinez told the Record. "It made me think that I was in a movie. She was in the funeral home paying her respects, and he was outside waiting in his car for her. I was walking her outside, opened the door and saw him lying in the street."
Bishop was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Paterson Police Capt. Heriberto Rodriguez said investigators were unsure whether Bishop's shooting was connected to Hildago's slaying or whether Bishop was deliberately targeted.
"I've been in the funeral business a long time, and I've seen a lot of bodies. But this is the first time that anyone has ever died in front of me," Martinez said. "But these are desperate times, and people do desperate things."
