Tasneem Diwan appeared in court Thursday on charges that she killed her 73-year-old mother-in-law
TRENTON - An East Windsor woman admitted to police that she bludgeoning her mother-in-law to death in the home they shared last month, prosecutors said Thursday during a bail hearing.
Tasneem Diwan. (Courtesy Mercer County Prosecutor's Office) Tasneem Diwan, 46, silently hung her head while appearing via video conference in Superior Court in Mercer County, and at one point moved out of the camera's view entirely.
Judge Pedro Jimenez ordered Diwan's bail be kept at $1 million and her passport be revoked.
"I'm not reducing her bail," Jimenez said in response to a motion by Diwan's public defender. "She admitted to murder."
He added that Diwan doesn't have a job and has two children in Pakistan, making her a flight risk. He ordered her to surrender her passport.
Diwan's public defender, Jamie Hubert, had argued Diwan's bail should be reduced because she has no prior charges and there is no physical evidence connecting her to the attack. Diwan, a U.S. citizen, has lived in the United States for 35 years and has one child in Mercer County, Hubert added.
Diwan was taken into custody a few days after her 73-year-old mother-in-law's body was found Jan. 26 in the home they shared on the 100 block of Mozart Court in East Windsor.
Diwan's husband came home to find his mother, Safia Diwan, lying in a pool of blood in a front office of the house, Assistant Prosecutor Skylar Weissman said. The husband called police to say that his mother was "unmoving and stiff," and that his wife, Tasneem Diwan was supposed to be home but wasn't, Weissman said.
The husband said he'd tried to call his wife multiple times with no answer.
Police determined that Safia Diwan had been bludgeoned to death with an unknown object. They immediately started looking for Tasneem Diwan.
Three days later, they found her walking around a bus terminal at the Tropicana casino in Atlantic City. Diwan was arrested and taken back to Mercer County where she confessed to authorities that she had killed her mother-in-law, Weissman said.
She was charged with murder and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Prosecutors did not have a motive for the killing Thursday.
Diwan's husband and child did not appear in court Thursday. Multiple neighbors who lived near their home on Mozart Court have said they didn't know the family and that they kept to themselves.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.