A Long Island man was being held without bail Saturday, accused of killing his elderly uncle and burying the body in the woods behind his mother’s Coram house, police said.
Jonathan Roman, 42, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of John Frankowski, 70, a New Hyde Park man whose son reported him missing about a week ago.
Roman, whose mother is Frankowski’s sister, was arrested Friday, the same day police uncovered the remains.
Before cops busted Roman, he cried and said, “Mommy, I’m sorry,” his mom, Sandra, told The Post.
She described her son, an out of work electrician, as an “ordinary person,” who helps out the neighbors.
“When it snows, he takes the snow blower to their driveways. Car breaks down — he helps then out. Need a plumber — be helps them out. Need an electrician — he helps them out,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”
But she said her son hasn’t expressed much remorse over his uncle, who she said was strangled.
“All he’s worried about is his union card. ‘Pay my union card. Shelf it,’ ” she said. ‘Why, do you think you’re getting out?’ ”
Sandra Roman last saw her brother, a retired accountant and divorced father of two, about three weeks ago.
“No one expected this,” said Roman, whose own 91-year-old mother died about nine months ago. The victim’s son, John Frankowski Jr., said a dispute had been simmering over his grandmother’s estate.
It’s the second time in five years the neighborhood has been used as a morbid dumping ground.
In 2009, Queens drug dealer Darren Lynch was convicted of killing and dismembering two men in a dispute over drugs, and burying the body parts near his parents’ Coram home, a few blocks from Roman’s Grove Avenue address.