Police were continuing to investigate at the house where a body was found buried in the backyard recently.
LONG BRANCH -- Mike Basile stood on a sidewalk near the home where just hours earlier on Wednesday police swarmed and a backhoe ripped at the yard where the remains of a missing 41-year-old woman were found.
Police were investigating a home on the 200 block of Joline Avenue, in Long Branch, on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016, where the body of 41-year-old Linden resident Tyrita R. Julius was found buried in the backyard.(Spencer Kent | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)(Spencer Kent | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Basile lives across the street from where police uncovered Tyrita Julius' body five months after she disappeared.
But he never once saw the man who lived at the house, 32-year-old Andre Harris, who is now charged along with 33-year-old Jennifer Sweeney, of Tinton Falls in Julius' murder.
"The first time I saw him was on TV," said Basile, a resident of the neighborhood for a decade. "It was a total shock."
The circumstances are equally mysterious. Prosecutors aren't saying how Julius died. No motive has been given. And prosecutors haven't identified what led them to dig up Harris' yard.
Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said it would take a few days to get the results of the autopsy to determine the cause of Julius' death.
Investigators plan to excavate the entire yard, prosecutors said Wednesday, though there was no sign of investigators at the home Thursday morning.
Basile said the incident was a shock to everyone on the street. A few other Joline Avenue neighbors also did not have a recollection of ever seeing Harris, and said the first time they saw him was on television news shows.
Before moving to Long Branch, Harris got in trouble with the law in 2011 when he was living in North Brunswick and was the manager of the traveling softball team New Jersey Thunder in South Brunswick.
Harris was charged with using a stolen credit card to book hotel rooms in Florida for a team tournament. He entered a pretrial intervention program for first time offenders on that case.
Sweeney was friends with Harris and Julius but prosecutors would not characterize Julius' relationship with Harris. Harris and Sweeney are now also charged with trying to kill Julius in a November shooting in Linden, where Julius lived.
Both are facing multiple charges including murder, desecration of a body and tampering with evidence. They each are being held in the Monmouth County jail in Freehold in lieu of $1.5 million cash bail.
The disappearance of Julius touched off an intense search for months.
Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the Find NJ.com on Facebook.