In the early morning hours of October 10, 1991, a deadly chain of events unfolded, culminating in the tragic death of 59-year-old Johannes VanderPaauw in Ridgewood, New Jersey. The male victim was one of four individuals killed in a violent rampage carried out by a disgruntled former postal worker. The night before, the killer, Joseph M. Harris, began his vengeful spree at the Wayne, New Jersey, home of his former supervisor, Carol Ott.
There, he brutally murdered Ott with a samurai sword and shot and killed her boyfriend, Cornelius Kasten Jr.
Following the initial attacks, Harris, armed with a machine gun, grenades, and the sword, proceeded to the Ridgewood post office. It was there that Johannes VanderPaauw, a mail handler, was arriving for his shift. Harris ambushed VanderPaauw and another colleague, Donald McNaught, shooting and killing them both. The motive for this horrific act of violence was Harris's anger over his dismissal from the postal service a year and a half prior, a termination that stemmed from his harassment of Ott.
After the murders at the post office, Harris barricaded himself inside, leading to a four-and-a-half-hour standoff with police. During the standoff, he set off two explosive devices before ultimately surrendering to authorities. Upon his arrest, Harris was charged with four counts of murder and numerous other offenses related to his deadly rampage.
The subsequent investigation revealed the depth of Harris's premeditation and anger. He had left behind a note expressing his grievances with the postal service and had even booby-trapped his apartment. In 1992, Joseph M. Harris was convicted of the murders of Johannes VanderPaauw, Donald McNaught, Carol Ott, and Cornelius Kasten Jr. and was subsequently sentenced to death. However, Harris was never executed for his crimes; he died of natural causes in prison in September 1996, just as the New Jersey Supreme Court was preparing to hear a case regarding the state's death penalty law. The violent episode was one of a series of attacks by postal employees that led to the coining of the phrase 'going postal.'
