John Sheridan (New Jersey government official)

rdf:langString John Sheridan (New Jersey government official)

rdf:langString John P. Sheridan Jr.

rdf:langString John P. Sheridan Jr.

rdf:langString Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

rdf:langString An older man with thin gray hair and glasses smiling, wearing a jacket and tie, against a gray background

rdf:langString John Sheridan in his later years

rdf:langString Mark, Matthew, Daniel and James

rdf:langString Presiding over creation of NJ Transit Rail Operations; controversial death

rdf:langString American

rdf:langString Lawyer, public official, healthcare executive

rdf:langString John and Rita Sheridan

rdf:langString Skillman

rdf:langString Joyce Mitchko

rdf:langString Roger A. Bodman

rdf:langString John Sheridan (September 7, 1942 – September 28, 2014) was a lawyer from the U.S. state of New Jersey. During the 1970s and 1980s he served in state government under Republican governors William T. Cahill and Thomas Kean. As the state's Transportation Commissioner during the latter governor's administration, he oversaw the transfer of commuter rail service in the state from Conrail to New Jersey Transit. At the time of his death, he was president and chief executive officer of Cooper Health System, which has since named one of its buildings after him. His death has been a matter of some controversy. Firefighters responding to a fire at his Skillman home in the early morning found Sheridan and his wife Joyce dead in an upstairs room. Both bodies had been stabbed multiple times; an autopsy found John Sheridan had been alive after the fire started. After a lengthy investigation the Somerset County prosecutor ruled that John Sheridan had killed his wife and then himself, setting the fire to make it appear they had died that way. Sheridan's four sons, the oldest of whom had followed his father's political footsteps and served as chief counsel to the New Jersey Republican Party, vigorously disputed the finding. Not only had their parents not shown any sign that they might do something like this, there were anomalies in the evidence, as well as deficiencies in the investigation. After a court challenge they brought, in 2017 the state's chief medical examiner overruled the prosecutor and said that while John Sheridan's proximate cause of death was the combined effect of the stab wounds he suffered and smoke inhalation, it could not be determined if he had stabbed himself or not. In 2022 the state reopened the investigation in the wake of a similar killing that also involved some people with political connections.

rdf:langString Stabbing of undetermined cause; smoke inhalation

rdf:langString State of New Jersey, Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti, Cooper Health System