GWB toll stop leads to arrest of Tennessee homicide suspect

Police in New Jersey who stopped a trucker suspected of trying to evade paying a toll say he unknowingly had picked up a person of interest in a Tennessee murder.

Port Authority police spokesman Al Della Fave says officers stopped Manuel Velasco's truck at the George Washington Bridge toll on Thursday.

Officers discovered his passenger, 52-year-old Charles Kelly, was wanted on forgery and theft charges and is a person of interest in the May murder of man in White Pine, Tenn.

The Record reported that the tractor-trailer was stopped just after 6:40 p.m. Thursday for going through the EZPass lane without paying the toll. The truck had no front plate and an opaque cover over its back plate, and Velasco was ticketed for toll evasion and a missing front plate, said Fave.

The trucker told police Kelly had asked for a ride at a gas station off Interstate 81 in Tennessee on Sunday. Velasco said he had taken Kelly on deliveries and even to his home in Valley Stream, NY, for dinner.


Kelly is awaiting extradition.