Man Indicted on Murder Charge in 2014 Death of Kean University Student, Found Bludgeoned Outside Home in New Jersey

The 22-year-old from Tennessee who attended Kean University was found dead in the backyard of a New Brunswick home in February 2014

A 39-year-old man has been indicted on a murder charge for allegedly beating a 22-year-old college student to death in the backyard of a New Jersey home last year, authorities said Tuesday.

Prosecutors have said the victim, William McCaw, a Tennessee resident who attended Kean University, did not know his attacker, allegedly Timothy Puskas, when he was bludgeoned to death outside a New Brunswick home on Feb. 15, 2014.

Prosecutors have not elaborated on what allegedly happened between Puskas and McCaw before the the fatal confrontation beyond to say the men appeared to be strangers.

They said McCaw attended Rutgers University before he went to Kean and returned to the Scarlet Knights' New Brunswick campus from time to time to visit friends he made while enrolled there. Authorities believe he attended a fraternity party before he was killed.

Puskas was arrested more than a month after McCaw was pronounced dead in the yard, the victim of what the medical examiner later determined to be blunt force trauma. McCaw had no connection to the people who lived in the home, and it is not clear where he was attacked, authorities have said.

In addition to murder, the five-count indictment charges Puskas with unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes and two counts of hindering his apprehension or prosecution.

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