Matawan man gets 25 years for patricide, another five for hiding the body in the basement

FREEHOLD - When Kenneth H. Knapp Jr. got physical during an argument with his father in their home in Matawan in 2022, the former collegiate wrestler slammed the elder Knapp through the bathroom door, causing him to strike his head on the floor.

As Kenneth H. Knapp Sr. lay bleeding and dying on the floor, his son left him there and went out to walk the dog.

When he returned to the house, the son went online to search how much force was needed to break someone's neck.

Then, he bound his father's body in a tarp, folded it in half and stuffed it in a plastic container in the basement, where it remained for a week.

When a concerned friend of his father came by the house asking for him, Knapp Jr. told him he was passed out drunk and told the friend to go away.

Then, he went to a Home Depot and purchased six 60-pound bags of concrete.

Those facts were laid out at the younger Knapp's sentencing Thursday for the aggravated manslaughter of his 58-year-old father and desecrating his father's remains.

"Clearly, this defendant planned to either bury his father's body in the woods or dump it in the ocean,'' Michael Luciano, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, told Superior Court Judge Henry P. Butehorn.

Butehorn sentenced Knapp, 33, to 25 years in prison for the aggravated manslaughter and an additional five years in prison for desecration of human remains.

Because Butehorn said Knapp devised a calculated plan to dispose of his father's remains to evade responsibility for killing him, that constituted a separate crime warranting a sentence running consecutive to the 25-year term.

Knapp's overall sentence is 30 years. He must serve at least 85 percent of the 25-year term for aggravated manslaughter without parole, under the state's No Early Release Act, before the subsequent sentence for desecration begins.

Knapp pleaded guilty to the two charges on Jan. 23. He admitted that during an argument with his father in their home on April 24, 2022, he escalated the verbal altercation into a physical one by throwing him through the bathroom door, causing his father to land "hard on his head'' on the floor. He admitted he left the home without seeking help for his mortally injured father.

Then he hid his father's body in a container in the basement for a week, intending to dispose of it, while continuing to live in the house.

"He doesn't lay his father in a container,'' Luciano said. ''He binds him in a tarp and folds him in half to get the top to fit on tight.''

In the following week, Knapp went about his life, using his father's credit card to buy alcohol and food, the assistant prosecutor said.

After one of the elder Knapp's friends went to the house on April 30, 2022, and was told he was passed out drunk, police came to the Knapp house for a welfare check the following day and discovered the victim's body, and the younger Knapp living upstairs in the house, according to the assistant prosecutor.

Knapp's defense attorney, John Murphy, said that although his client wasn't jailed until Aug. 19, 2022, he was hospitalized for several months prior to that after suffering "a mental health break'' and having trouble "deciphering reality from delusion.''

The younger Knapp was not going about a normal life after his father died, but hid in his bedroom and was "living in terror and horror,'' Murphy said.

The father and son had what Murphy described as a "tumultuous'' relationship, which led to conflict while the two were drinking.

The conflict "very rarely became physical, but there was an abusive nature of the relationship,'' Murphy said.

"This whole situation is incredibly heartbreaking,'' Murphy said, adding that his client said the happiest time of his life was his four years in high school, when his father had stopped drinking.

Luciano said the defendant tried to make it appear that he was emotionally abused and ''somehow his father was the lynchpin of many of the troubles he suffered.''

But, Knapp Sr. was there for his son when he was going through difficult times, the assistant prosecutor said.

"He opened up his home, as well as his arms, to his son, and his son repays him by killing him in the home that the two men shared,'' Luciano said.

Knapp, when given the opportunity to address the judge before he was sentenced, said he had two things to tell him.

"Firstly, I feel horrible about what happened,'' Knapp said. "Not a day goes by that I don't regret it. You know, I miss my father dearly.

"Second of all, I've been diagnosed with schizoaffective and bipolar (disorders), which makes it hard to differentiate between fantasy and reality at times,'' he said.

At the request of Murphy, the judge recommended that Knapp serve his sentence at a prison where he will be able to get treatment for his mental illnesses.

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Matawan man gets 30 years for killing dad and hiding body in basement