Hundreds of people, few witnesses: Mystery of Toms River hookah lounge murder

TOMS RIVER — Top Tier Hookah lounge had reached capacity with more than 100 revelers inside when two men dressed in black tried to enter the club but were turned away.

It was late summer 2022, and nightlife was still in full swing along the Shore and in outlying towns as people put the pandemic behind them.

Soon the crowd at the lounge, located in a strip mall on Hooper Avenue, diminished, and the two men who had been lingering outside walked in around 1:15 a.m. A bouncer patted them down for weapons, a routine security measure there, according to court testimony and documents.

The revelers would soon shift from buoyant to terror-stricken, literally in a flash, as 25-year-old Nymere Tinsley was mortally wounded by gunfire, according to court testimony and the affidavit of probable cause in the case against the alleged killer Eric Manzanares.

According to detectives’ review of the club’s surveillance footage described in the affidavit, Tinsley is seen talking to and taking pictures with a woman in a blue tank top and blue shorts who is standing on the dance floor. She went over to the two men in black and Tinsley follows. The footage shows him leaning toward the two men and having a brief conversation. Then Tinsley falls back, shot in the lower abdomen. People in the club turn their heads toward Tinsley and duck. Mass flight from the lounge follows.

People climbed over each other to exit the place, a bouncer later told police. Others came to Tinsley’s aid.

The first police officer to encounter the aftermath, Toms River Patrolman Kevin Landmesser, also tried to help Tinsley. Toms River officers started CPR on the mortally wounded man for a few minutes. Paramedics from Silverton EMS arrived and took over.

Tinsley didn’t make it out of the club alive.

Two other men were also shot, Anthony E. Miller, then 29, suffered a gunshot wound to his stomach. Jamal Bland, 24 at the time, was shot in the elbow. Both men were taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where Miller was listed in critical condition for a time, according to a prosecutor handling the case. Bland was treated and released. Weeks passed before Miller left Jersey Shore.

Immediately after the shooting, investigators explored whether gang strife sparked the killing. They asked a bouncer who was working the front door the night of the shooting whether he had observed any gang activity in the club that night or any other. He told the detectives that he always tells clubgoers that no gang “flags” or “colors” are allowed to be displayed. If he sees them, he tells the customers to remove or hide them, the bouncer told the detectives. The affidavit mentioned nothing more about gang activity.

The bouncer also told investigators that he routinely pats down customers. He was “not satisfied” with the pat-down of the two men in black that night, but he did not elaborate. One of the men adjusted his shirt just before he checked the man for a weapon, he told investigators.

Hookah lounges, which offer flavored tobacco in a pipe that draws smoke through water in a bowl, vary greatly, from relaxed, Middle Eastern-style cafes to raucous night spots. Some of the latter have drawn the wrath of cities across the country since the mid-2010s.

That rancor has been fueled by stories like the one that quickly unfolded in the now-shuttered Toms River nightclub on Aug. 27, 2022.

Tinsley’s body was taken to Community Medical Center in Toms River. There, “individuals who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation,” told Detective Alex Bromley of the Major Crimes Unit of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office that two people nicknamed “Shooter” and “60” carried out the murder. Law enforcement officers were familiar with both.

Supervising Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Jamie Schron said at Manzanares’ detention hearing in February that detectives found that neither man was anywhere near the hookah lounge at the time of the killing.

And the man named “Shooter,” Derek L. Bussey of Asbury Park, wore dreadlocks, looking nothing like the two men dressed in black.

Nearly a year later, Bussey was gunned down on Atkins Avenue in Asbury Park. That slaying remains unsolved.

The details drawn from the description of the surveillance video in the affidavit leave a murky picture as to who the Top Tier shooter was.

But a man in the club who saw the two men in black leaving the lounge took a video that he shared with authorities of the vehicle they drove off in, a 2006 gray Mercedes sedan. As they were entering the car to leave, one of the men looked to be handling a gun, the witness told investigators.

Video surveillance footage from a Wawa that the two men had visited prior to going to the lounge was also obtained, clearly showing both.

Detectives quickly found that the Mercedes belonged to Manzanares’ aunt who lived in Ocean Township, Monmouth County, according to the affidavit. From there, they discovered that Manzanares was living with his girlfriend in an apartment on Fifth Avenue in Asbury Park. Manzanares was six months behind on his rent and about to be thrown out, one of the leaseholders told police.

When homicide detectives executed a search warrant on the apartment, they found a .45-caliber Springfield XD firearm - a compact handgun - a magazine containing 13 live rounds, Manzanares’ license, his cell phone and a black gun holster.

Investigators also discovered live rounds of ammunition bearing an identifying mark - a manufacturer’s stamp at the base of the cartridge - that matched that of a spent cartridge found at the lounge. Another turned up in the Mercedes, authorities said.

A trial date has not been set.

Based on the detention hearing, key pieces of evidence could include the gun and the shell casing for the defense; and a T-shirt and video for the prosecution.

When the .45-caliber handgun that police found in the apartment was tested by the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office, the tests showed that the spent shell found at the scene of the murder did not match the gun, according to court testimony.

Terrance Turnbach, Manzanares’ defense attorney, called the state’s case “weak.”

“There’s no (murder) weapon recovered in this matter whatsoever, judge,” Turbach said to Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels during the Feb. 22 detention hearing at Ocean County Courthouse. “There are hundreds of people at this hookah lounge. There’s nobody pointing the finger to say we witnessed Eric Mazanares shoot Mr. Tinsley, Mr. Bland or Mr. Miller. Not one, judge.”

Schron underscored a piece of evidence that could prove key. That night, Manzanares was wearing a black T-shirt with three white symbols on the front: a prescription sign, a dollar sign and the silhouette of a woman twerking.

It turned up in the Wawa surveillance video. And it was among the personal items seized from Manzanares’ apartment.

“In the hookah lounge surveillance, it can be seen that he's clad in that black shirt with those three white symbols,” Schron said at the detention hearing.

Schron offered more details of surveillance footage from the club than the description in the affidavit of probable cause.

“There’s clearly something happening between (Tinsley) and this defendant. Hand motions back and forth in either direction. They’re standing close to each other in a room very crowded with people. They’re dancing, people dancing shoulder to shoulder, there’s lights flashing – essentially a party atmosphere," Schron said. "But there is something happening, something brewing between the two parties at the hookah lounge that night."

Tinsley was videoing Manzanares, and Manzanares’ girlfriend was taking a video of Tinsley taking the video, which law enforcement obtained, she said.

“In the (surveillance) video, you can see Mr. Tinsley move through the crowd. At one point he's standing in front of the defendant and his friend.  And then Mr. Tinsley drops to the ground. You see a flash waist-level in front of this defendant," Schron said. "And then the defendant turns to walk out of the Hookah lounge as everybody's fleeing and he adjusts his waistband and touches near the waistband of his pants.”

The video showed that the man Manzanares was with, whom Schron identified only as Mr. Perez, had his hands in his pockets when the flash occurred, she said. Whether Perez was interviewed by investigators was not mentioned in the affidavit or at the hearing.

Manzanares fled to Virginia after the shooting and wasn’t caught until April 7, 2023. It took nearly 10 months to extradite him to Ocean County.

He will remain in Ocean County Jail pending the outcome of the case.

Ken Serrano covers breaking news, crime and investigations. Reach him at 732-643-4029 or kserrano@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Toms River NJ hookah lounge slaying: what happened in the packed club