July 27, 2007 — The murder of his friend Trevor “T.J.” Joseph was the first such incident faced by his ATM company in more than a decade of business, the company’s owner said Friday.
Joseph was killed outside the Best Western Emerald Beach Hotel as he serviced an ATM outside the hotel lobby. Automated Systems America (ASAI-VI) owned the machine. In 12 years of business ASAI-VI has never even had a robbery, said owner Sam Sarcinelli, speaking from his Chicago office Friday morning.
"We have about 2,300 machines all over the States, but we've never had an incident like this,” he said. "When I heard what happened, we immediately set up the reward. We hope beyond hope that the murderer is caught."
Sarcinelli said he is at a loss to determine what happened the morning Joseph got shot and killed. Joseph had picked up a sum of money at FirstBank about 9 a.m. that morning, minutes before he was shot.
"Normally there are two men working together," Sarcinelli said. "Occasionally,T.J. would make a stop or two before he called the other guy. For some reason he didn't do that Friday, unfortunately. From what we can gather, he went directly to Emerald Bay."
As personal friends to Joseph and his wife, Gail, the loss has hit Sarcinelli and his family hard.
"We are shocked," he said. "They are such lovely, lovely people, T.J. and Gail. My sisters and I know them well. My sister and Gail talked almost every day."
ASAI is a family-owned business, Sarcinelli said. "We got to know Gail when she worked at First Bank," he said. "That's how we got to know T.J."
Asked if he had talked to the hotel about its own security procedures, Sarcinelli said that for security reasons he couldn't elaborate on that or his company's normal procedures.
"One of my sisters, Dolly Perelli, and I are coming down on Thursday,” he said. “We'll be there for the funeral on the weekend. I have a home on St. Thomas. We still can't believe it."
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