An argument in a New Jersey parking lot escalated into violence when one man stabbed another in the chest then kidnapped a woman at the scene, authorities said Sunday.
A suspect in the stabbing, Saloman Rosendo Gomez-Serpas, 23, was apprehended at about 2 p.m. Saturday, roughly 10 hours after the incident, the Union County Prosecutor's Office said.
Gomez-Serpas fatally stabbed 30-year-old Mario Ortiz during an argument in the parking lot of a bar on New Point Road in Elizabeth and ordered a woman at the scene to get into a nearby car, investigators said. He then drove away with the woman.
Ortiz was declared dead at the scene.
Investigators found Gomez-Serpas and the woman in an apartment on Marshall Street, prosecutors said. The woman was unharmed.
Gomez-Serpas was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and a second-degree weapons offense, prosecutors said.
He was being held at Union County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
