Update on body found in Passaic River

TRENTON – Det. Thomas McEnroe, of the New Jersey State Police Major Crimes Unit, who was working the incident on Monday night, Oct. 13, when the body of an unidentified man was recovered from the Passaic River with the assistance of The Kearny Fire Department, gave an update on the situation after the next of kin of Luis Orbe, 39, was notified in Ecuador late last evening.
Orbe was a homeless man who stayed in Newark since the early 1990s, according to McEnroe. He said a group of Ecuadorian residents from the Newark area are banning together to raise money in order to send the body home through the Ecuadorian Consulate to his wife and child so he can be buried in Ecuador. Some of the generous group had known the man and some did not.
Orbe’s last known address was 155 Wilson Ave. in Newark. McEnroe said that it is difficult to know what exactly happened but no foul play is suspected.
“There was no trauma on his body, no shots, no stabbings, no broken bones. His clothing was in good condition – not stretched out, not torn. It doesn’t look like he’s been in any altercation,” McEnroe said. “There were no defensive wounds or anything like that.”
The detective said that Orbe was known to be a heavy drinker.
“A lot of people I interviewed said for 15 years one woman said he used to fall asleep on the front porch of the building she lived in. She said, ‘We’d bring him inside, he’d fall asleep in the vestibule after drinking.’” He said.
Orbe apparently had bouts on and off with alcohol consumption since “he had a DWI, was arrested for urinating in public.”
“As recently as a year ago a family on Jackson Street (in Newark) had said come live in our basement and we can get you help for your problem. When they offered to buy him a ticket to Ecuador to see his family over there, he refused the help and the ticket back home,” McEnroe said.
As for the cause of the drowning, the detective said many times homeless people would fall in the water. McEnroe interviewed a homeless man who said he fell in the water last week since they often sleep near the water. The man almost drowned but he knew how to swim and could get out. Orbe did not know how to swim.
“These guys are tough guy to find because they have no ID and no real documentation,” McEnroe said. “The only way we were able to get him was because he had a DWI with a minor in the car in 2007 so we had fingerprints. If we didn’t have the fingerprints, he’d be unidentified.”