Atlantic City's Crimes

The failure of Atlantic City's casinos to adequately address crime defines one of the many problems associated with Predatory Gambling.

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AC mayor's ban on policing casino garages voided
Atlantic City: In the aftermath of the fatal carjackings
Atlantic City: In wake of fatal carjackings, police to patrol parking garages
Taj Mahal: Deadly Carjacking
Arrest in Fatal Taj Mahal Carjacking



Woman in fatal Atlantic City casino parking garage carjacking testifies against her lover
By DEREK HARPER Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com

MAYS LANDING — Jessica Kisby said Craig Arno “was actually out of breath” after stabbing Martin Caballero to death in May 2010, ending the life of the stranger the pair carjacked that day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City.

“I really can’t count” how many times Arno stabbed Caballero, Kisby testified Tuesday. “It was numerous. It was numerous.”

Kisby admitted to murder, carjacking, arson, theft and three weapons-possession counts in Atlantic County Superior Court. In exchange for a 30-year sentence in a state prison, plus five years’ probation, Kisby, 26, agreed on Valentine’s Day to testify against her lover Arno, 46, when he goes to trial in April.

The couple were accused in a weeklong spree that started with armed robbery at a Hamilton Township Dunkin’ Donuts and culminated in a fatal carjacking May 21, 2010, from the parking garage of the Taj and ended in the theft of a minivan.

Kisby will receive credit for the almost two years she has been in custody when she is sentenced May 25, Superior Court Judge Michael Donio said.

Four of Caballero’s family members, including a man who identified himself as Caballero’s son, listened in on speakerphone Tuesday as Kisby was brought into the courtroom. She then admitted her crimes for more than a half-hour.

Shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit with “Cape May County Jail” printed in the middle of her back, Kisby spoke calmly and directly as she described bloody and horrific events with near-clinical detachment.

Kisby said she and Arno had never met Caballero, a 47-year-old from Hudson County — but they targeted him because of his 2009 Lincoln MKS.

“Mostly his car, I guess,” she said. “It was a nice car, so we figured he had some money.”

They parked the gray car they were driving that belonged to Arno’s grandmother, and Kisby said she got out and struck up a conversation with Caballero. Arno quickly interrupted, brandishing a pellet gun and shoving Caballero into his year-old Lincoln’s trunk, she said.

She and Arno then drove the Caballero’s car to an Atlantic City ATM, she said, where they forced Caballero to make a withdrawal. Once they found Caballero had reached his daily limit, Arno forced Caballero back into the trunk and they drove to a desolate spot in Mays Landing, she said. There, Kisby said Caballero fought for his life while Arno stabbed him several times before the knife broke.

“He was kicking. He was kicking and I held his legs,” Kisby said. She had a box cutter, she said, so “I sliced at his legs a few times.”

The couple drove the Lincoln back to Kisby’s home in Egg Harbor Township. There, the 2006 Egg Harbor Township High School graduate took her mother’s knife from the kitchen and a decorative knife from her bedroom.

They headed back to Mays Landing, she said. While she drove the Lincoln, Kisby said, Arno directed her from the rear seat to keep Caballero from pushing through and escaping the trunk.

“On the way out, we heard some rustling in the back,” she said.

Back in Mays Landing, she said Arno stabbed Caballero until he was panting from the exertion. Kisby said Arno then pulled Caballero out of the trunk, dragged him under a bush and they left.

They got on the Atlantic City Expressway and drove to the Pathmark in Pleasantville, looking for lighter fluid to burn the Lincoln, she said. The store was closed, she said, so Arno withdrew money from a Bank of America ATM using Caballero’s card and Kisby drove to a Pleasantville gas station to buy gasoline instead.

An attendant saw the car’s back bumper was smeared with blood.

“He was like ‘Oh, (expletive)’ and I looked at it, so I came up this story about a deer” that she told the attendant they hit. “We have this whole conversation about these deer, right?”

Kisby bought a can of gas, and she and Arno drove to pick up his grandmother’s car in Atlantic City. With Arno in the Lincoln, she followed in the gray car back onto the Atlantic City Expressway.

“His original intention was go to Philly,” she said. “There really wasn’t much conversation.” On the road she called him and said she was tired, so he pulled off at an exit she said she was unfamiliar with.

“We ended up in some parking lot behind a building,” she said. Arno poured gasoline on the car as she waited from a distance, she said.

As he leaned over to ignite the car, she said, he briefly set himself on fire. He pulled off his burned sweatshirt, and they left in his grandmother’s car.

The burned-out Lincoln was found the day after the carjacking in Blackwood, Camden County.

Several days later, she said they thought the gray car could attract attention. They drove to Atlantic City’s Plaza condominiums on May 27, seven days after their week of crime began, and distracted a parking attendant by sending him to look for a car that wasn’t there, she said.

They hopped in a van that someone had left with the keys in the ignition but quickly abandoned it after the On-Star remote car monitoring service activated, she said.

The police arrested the pair several days later at the Golden Key Motel in the West Atlantic City section of Egg Harbor Township.

Caballero was found two days after that, stabbed to death and dumped on a Hamilton Township farm off of Leipzig Avenue.

Kisby said the pair never planned to end a stranger’s life and dump him under a bush.

“I don’t know when it (the decision to kill) was made because I didn’t make it,” she said in court. “There was never a discussion. We never talked about it. It just happened.”

The couple were indicted on 39 charges, including an alleged robbery of a Hamilton Township Dunkin’ Donuts on May 20.

Other charges included robbery and attempted murder after Kisby tried to steal medical supplies from the Pleasantville Kmart three days after the carjacking on May 24, presumably to treat Arno, who was burned on his face, arms and chest when authorities arrested him.

In court Tuesday, defense and prosecution lawyers and Donio spent hours going over the final details of the plea agreement.

Arno was led in a little after 4 p.m., standing for about five minutes as Donio told him about several pretrial motions dealing with photographs and an audiotape. The judge discussed schedules and the motions, including one that would sever the pair’s case into competing cases. This is legally necessary for Kisby’s separate plea agreement to be valid.

It was never said in the courtroom to Arno that Kisby would be testifying against him. Arno is expected back in court on the motions March 1.

Arno’s trial is expected to start April 4. The court expected to screen about 150 people for the jury, which could take three or four days.

Eric Shenkus, Arno’s public defender, cast doubt on Kisby’s reliability as a witness.

“The prosecutor has chosen to make a deal with the devil today,” he said. “In a desperate attempt to bolster a weak case against my client, they have given a bargain to the only person they have overwhelming proof against, Jessica Kisby. We look forward to seeing the prosecutor’s new ‘star witness’ under cross examination at trial.”

Staff Writer Lynda Cohen contributed to this report