Police charge man with homicide for deaths of former girlfriend, her grandmother in East Hills

A man was charged Tuesday with stabbing and beating his former girlfriend and her grandmother to death after police found witnesses who said they saw him and his baby son covered in blood.

Police charged Cesar Mazza, 25, with two counts of homicide in the deaths of Tionna Banks, 19, and her grandmother, Valorie Crumpton, 72, of East Hills.

Police found their bodies May 7 inside Crumpton's home along Karl Street. Officers were sent to the home to check on Crumpton's well-being because she missed an appointment with a social service agency.

Federal marshals in New Jersey arrested Mazza on May 15 in Newark on three bench warrants for missing a court date on charges that he assaulted Banks when she was pregnant with the couple's son.

According to a criminal complaint, witnesses said:

Mazza arrived on May 4 at his mother's house with “blood on his clothing and...blood all over the baby.” One witness said the “blood appeared to be more fresh than old and was sticky to the touch.”

Autopsies showed that Banks had been stabbed 15 times and badly beaten. Her grandmother had been badly beaten as well.

Mazza explained the blood saying that he went to Crumpton's home to see Banks and that the young woman became irate and tried to stab him, showing them a small cut on his hand.

“Cesar Mazza currently beats me while (I) carry a baby, also threatening to kill me and my family,” Banks wrote in a petition for a protection from abuse order dated Oct. 7.

A little more than a month later on Nov. 9, police charged Mazza with aggravated assault, aggravated assault of an unborn child, terroristic threats and stalking. Banks told police Mazza knocked her down, kicked her in the stomach and threatened her life if she did not name the child after him.

Adam Brandolph and Michael Hasch are staff writers for Trib Total Media.