The surviving brother of Princeton preppy murder suspect Matthew Hertgen had texted his youngest brother warning that their sibling was struggling with “visions” roughly an hour before the youngest brother was brutally murdered, newly revealed court docs show.
Matthew Hertgen, 31, is accused of using a knife and a golf club to slash and beat his 26-year-old brother, Joseph Hertgen, to death in a Princeton, New Jersey, apartment late last month — before ripping out his kin’s eye and eating it.
Their other brother later told cops he sent Joseph a text message telling him to reach out if he needed help dealing with their troubled sibling, according to a probable cause statement obtained by NJ.com.
“Will do,” Joseph responded — about an hour before he was hacked to death, the filing shows.
The surviving brother, who had spent several hours with Hertgen the day of the slaying, later told investigators his sibling had struggled with mental health and had been “extremely distressed, despondent and experiencing terrifying visions” in the lead-up to the killing.
“Wanting to help him, [the surviving brother] picked Matthew up at [redacted] at approximately 4:30 p.m. [The surviving brother] and Matthew went to the grocery store and then to [the surviving brother’s] residence … where they remained until approximately 10:00 p.m.,” the probable cause statement said.
The surviving brother then dropped Hertgen back at the apartment where Joseph was.
After sending the eerie warning message to Joseph, the other brother also texted Hertgen to invite him on a hike the following day and urged him to “Hang in there.”
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Less than 45 minutes later, Hertgen called 911 to report his alleged twisted rampage, which authorities said also involved setting the family’s cat on fire.
The grim details emerged as Hertgen, a former college soccer star, faced Mercer County Superior Court on Thursday on murder and animal cruelty charges.
The accused killer faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted.
Authorities still haven’t revealed a motive for Hertgen’s alleged descent into homicidal madness.
