Two Charged in Slaying of Coptic Christian Family

Two men have been charged for the slaying of a Coptic Christian family of four whose bodies were found bound and gagged in their Jersey City Heights home last month, their throats and heads stabbed repeatedly.

According to the Associated Press, Edward McDonald, 25, who rented a second-floor apartment above Hossam Armanious and his family, pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder, as did Hamilton Sanchez, 30. Both men were ordered held on $10 million bail.

"I didn't kill nobody, man," Sanchez said as he was led from the courtroom.

Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said the killings took place during a robbery by the two men, who owed someone a large sum of money.

"I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: The motive for these murders was robbery. This was a crime based on greed, the desperate need of money," DeFazio said.

Enormous tensions between Muslims and Christians in the Jersey City area surfaced since the bodies of Hossam Armanious, a 47-year-old Coptic Christian, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were found bound and gagged, their throats and heads stabbed repeatedly. Home to about 30,000 Copts, the Jersey City area has one of the largest concentrations of Coptic Christians in the country.

As mourners took the city