Charles Bauer’s killing at Whitesbog and the 2016 life sentence

The discovery at Union Pond

Charles Bauer, a 23-year-old Pemberton Township man, was killed on January 25, 2013. An ice skater discovered his body the next morning on the frozen surface of Union Pond, in the Whitesbog Village section of Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in Pemberton Township, Burlington County. The Courier-Post’s report on the 2016 sentencing describes the body as found shirtless and face down on the pond.

According to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, as reported by the Courier-Post, Bauer was lured to a Pemberton Township home by text messages made to appear as though they came from his girlfriend. Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said Brandon Dixon and a co-defendant, Ryan Sweet, intended to rob Bauer of his vehicle; the Burlington County Times, reporting from a 2015 hearing, identified the vehicle as Bauer’s Ford Mustang and placed the killing at Sweet’s home in the township. That address is not identified here.

How Bauer died was contested at trial. The Courier-Post reported that authorities alleged Dixon put Bauer in a “sleeper hold” that fatally cut the flow of oxygen to his brain. The Burlington County Times reported that the Burlington County medical examiner testified only that Bauer died from a lack of oxygen to the brain and could not say how, and that testimony from others suggested he may have been put in a chokehold.

Charges, pleas and sentences

Five men were charged. The specific counts returned by the grand jury, and the date of the indictment, are not established by any source opened for this entry; what follows is the record of pleas, verdicts and sentences as reported.

Brandon Dixon rejected a plea offer of aggravated manslaughter carrying up to 30 years and went to trial. A Burlington County jury convicted him in April 2016 of felony murder, robbery and desecration of human remains. At sentencing on June 22, 2016, Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey imposed a life sentence; the Courier-Post reported that Dixon, then 29, must serve at least 85 percent of the term — 75 years — before parole eligibility. Bernardi called the killing “senseless” and “depraved.” Bauer’s mother, Karen Bauer, told the court, “All I have is a grave to go to.”

Ryan Sweet pleaded guilty in May 2015 to aggravated manslaughter and was sentenced on May 26, 2016 to 17 years in state prison, with 85 percent to be served before parole eligibility under the No Early Release Act. He was 22. Judge Delehey said Sweet was “fortunate” not to be standing before him convicted of felony murder.

Three other men pleaded guilty to desecration of human remains for helping move or dispose of the body; the judge found that none had taken part in the killing. Patrick Bush pleaded guilty to a third-degree count, testifying that he drove the vehicle carrying Bauer’s body, and Andrew Baith also pleaded guilty; both were sentenced to time served on May 26, 2016. Paul Martell pleaded guilty to a second-degree count, testifying that he moved Bauer’s body to the vehicle, and was sentenced in November 2015 to time served. Burlington County Assistant Prosecutor Douglas Bligh represented the State against all five.

What is not confirmed here

Three news accounts were opened in full for this entry, all of them Gannett newspaper reports; no charging document, transcript or judgment of conviction was examined. Two contemporaneous NJ.com reports previously relied on for this entry could not be opened — the publisher returns an HTTP 403 to this researcher — and every fact that rested only on them, including the date and contents of the indictment and the defendants’ ages at that time, has been removed rather than carried forward.

A search of CourtListener’s New Jersey Appellate Division collection returned no opinion in any of these cases. That collection is visibly incomplete for New Jersey state criminal appeals, so this is not evidence that no appeal was taken; whether Dixon’s conviction was appealed, and with what result, is not established here. Nor is it established here whether any of these sentences was later modified, or where any defendant is now held. The New Jersey Department of Corrections offender search was blocked by a bot-challenge page and could not be queried.