Judge Esther Salas breaks silence to pay heartbreaking tribute to son after he was shot dead by ‘monster’ on doorstep
A FEDERAL judge whose son was murdered and husband critically injured when a gunman ambushed them and opened fire has broken her silence about the targeted attack.
Esther Salas this morning released a video statement on YouTube in which she described the loss of her only child as "unfathomable".
Disgruntled lawyer , 72, was disguised as a FedEx delivery driver , through the heart at his family home in New Jersey on July 19, an FBI spokesperson told The Sun.
“Two weeks ago, my life as I knew it changed in an instant, and my family will never be the same,” Salas said in the video.
“Daniel and I went downstairs to the basement and we were chatting, as we always do.
“And Daniel said, ‘Mom, let’s keep talking, I love talking to you, Mom.’ It was at that exact moment that the doorbell rang, and Daniel looked at me and said, ‘Who is that?’”
Before she "could say a word", Daniel sprinted upstairs, Salas said.
“Within seconds, I heard the sound of bullets and someone screaming, ‘No!'" she continued.
“I later learned that this monster, who had a FedEx package in his hand, opened fire, but Daniel being Daniel, protected his father and he took the shooter’s first bullet directly to the chest."
Salas’ husband Mark Anderl, 63, before the gunman drove to Sullivan County and turned the weapon on himself.
“The monster then turned his attention to my husband and began to shoot at my husband, one shot after another," Salas added.
"Mark was shot three times: one bullet entered his right chest, the other his left abdomen, and the last one in the right forearm.”
The alleged was found dead in his car near a campsite in the , authorities confirmed — and a package addressed to the judge was found along with his body, officials said.
Salas described Den Hollander, a self-professed “anti-feminist” lawyer, as “a madman, who I believe was targeting me because of my position as a federal judge, came to my house".
Personal details for federal judges, including phone numbers, home addresses and other private information, is readily accessible on the internet. That needs to change, according to Salas.
“My son’s death cannot be in vain, which is why I am begging those in power to do something to help my brothers and sisters on the bench,” she said.
“Now, more than ever, we need to identify a solution that keeps the lives of federal judges private. I know this is a complicated issue, and I don’t pretend to know or have all answers, but together we can find a way.
"As federal judges, we understand that our decisions will be scrutinized. Some may disagree strongly with our rulings.
"We know that our job requires us to make tough calls. Sometimes those calls can leave people angry and upset. That comes with the territory.
"We accept that. But what we cannot accept is when we are forced to live in fear for our lives because personal information like our home addresses can easily be obtained by anyone seeking to do us or our families harm.
"Unfortunately for my family, the threat was real. The free flow of information from the internet allowed this sick and depraved human being to find all our personal information and target us."
Salas said she and her husband "are living every parent’s worst nightmare — making preparations to bury our only child".
“My family has experienced a pain that no one should ever have to endure," she said.
“And I am here asking everyone to help me ensure that no one ever has to experience this kind of pain. We may not be able to stop something like this from happening again, but we can make it hard for those who target us to track us down.”
Authorities are reportedly looking into whether shooter, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, was attempting to carry out a hit-list of his perceived enemies.
In more than 2,000 pages of often misogynistic, racist writings published online, Den Hollander — a men’s rights attorney and self-professed Trump volunteer — .
“Death’s hand is on my left shoulder… nothing in this life matters anymore,” he wrote.
“Mother Nature, as females usually do, tricked me.”
The book's dedication states: "To Mother: May she burn in Hell."
In the rambling manifesto he wrote this year, Den Hollander slammed Salas, 51, who was presiding over a lawsuit he filed in 2015, regarding a woman who wanted to register for the men-only military draft.
He said his condition worsened when he was “preparing for oral argument in a federal case before a lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama."
Salas, seated in Newark, was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed in 2011.
He earlier referred to Salas as "this hot Latina Judge in the US District Court for New Jersey whom Obama had appointed."
"At first, I wanted to ask the Judge out, but thought she might hold me in contempt," he wrote.
“But what really annoyed me was the time consumed to deal with this doom,” he continued of his .
“I had things to do to balance the accounts, but time was now rapidly running out.”
He revealed his “primary objective was not survival but to stay functional long enough to wrap-up my affairs."
“As a former weight-lifting champion in Florida once said, ‘Cancer knocks you down, but chemo [now immuno] finishes you off’,” Den Hollander wrote.
“I wasn’t going that route.
“It was my car and I was the one holding the keys.”
Den Hollander said “the most virulent form of cancer (was) march(ing) toward my brain” and described feeling “like an infected earthling in the movie Alien."
“Just before Christmas (2018), I chose to die sooner (rather than later) — seemed a fitting present for that time of year,” he said.
When discussing his treatment options with health professionals, Den Hollander said he “emphasized that my interest was not to maximize my existence but maintain my functionality for one, maybe two years, since I had things to do."
The accused killer called the judge an “affirmative action” case who affiliated with those who wanted “to convince America that whites, especially white males, were barbarians, and all those of a darker skin complexion were victims."
Den Hollander also described Salas as being the product of “the usual effort to blame a man and turn someone into super girl” because she was reportedly abandoned by her father as a child.
“The only problem with a life lived too long under Feminazi rule is that a man ends up with so many enemies he can't even the score with all of them,” he wrote.
“But law school and the media taught me how to prioritize."
Den Hollander's writing also details a marriage to a Russian bride, named Angelina, who was younger than him.
The attorney wrote that she obtained a green card through marriage to him, but left him after they moved from Moscow to the US.
"Russian babes are real women—not like the man-haters in America who try to act like men," he wrote.
He later described her as a "dark angel" in his writing, and said he learned she had cheated on him.
The brutal attack came days after the federal judge was assigned a case linked to late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
According to court documents, Deutsche Bank is accused of misleading investors "about anti-money-laundering deficiencies," including failing to properly monitor high-risk customers, including Epstein.
Salas’ husband Mark remains in hospital and is in critical condition after being shot several times when he opened the door to the killer.
Her son Daniel was set to be heading back shortly to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he was named to the Dean's List this spring.
Salas was reportedly in the basement and ran upstairs during the shooting on Sunday, but was not injured.
Neighbor Wenfeng Zhang, 44, who lives directly across from the Salas home but didn’t realize at the time what had just happened.
“He looked at me and I looked at him when he was walking from the house to his car,” Zhang said.
“Then he walked calmly up to his car and drove away.
“He looked normal. Not in a rush or anything. I thought he just delivered something."
As the suspect left, Zhang told The Sun he saw Salas’ husband sitting on the front porch and making a phone call.
“I didn’t realize he’d been shot," he said.
"He didn’t ask for help. I didn’t know he needed help.”
Zhang said he became suspicious when he then drove out of the street and saw police cars racing towards the neighborhood.
“I rang my wife who was still at home and she told me they were across the street and the whole road was being blocked off," he said.
Zhang’s wife, Jenny Wang, told The Sun she heard gunshots and a scream outside her home around 5pm on Sunday.
