Dateline: The Grudge - Who is Esther Salas and what happened to her son Daniel? Disturbing details of the 2020 incident, revealed

NBC’s Dateline episode titled, The Grudge, depicts the tragic day in US District Judge Esther Salas’s life when she lost her son, Daniel Anderl. Daniel died after being shot in the chest by Roy Den Hollander on July 19, 2020.

The synopsis of the Dateline episode reads:

"The deadly 2020 shooting at U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas' home, which killed her son and critically injured her husband."

More on this in our story.

Dateline: The Grudge - Who is Esther Salas, and what happened to her son Daniel? Details explored

Dateline brought forth the case of Judge Esther Salas’s story of losing her son on the tragic day of July 19, 2020. Trained to become an attorney, Salas became the first Latino woman as a district magistrate judge in 2006 and later as a district Judge in 2011.

Married to Mark Anderl, Salas had a son, Daniel Anderl, and the family lived in North Brunswick, New Jersey. On July 19, 2020, the family's fate changed when 20-year-old Daniel opened the front door of their home. A man disguised as a FedEx deliveryman approached their home, and just as Daniel opened the door, he began firing.

Daniel tragically died after being shot in the chest, while his father was brutally injured after being shot at multiple times. Salas was in the basement at the time, hence she was spared as the man ran away after the brutal attack. As per Dateline, the police arrived shortly after and, through the neighbors, got the information that a tall, thin, white male left in a silver blue Nissan Sentra after the incident.

As the attack happened in a Judge’s home, the investigators feared that the man might strike again, and everyone, including the FBI, US Marshals, prosecutors, and ATF, among others, was called.

The investigators initially looked into Daniel’s social media and interviewed his friends, but came up with nothing, as Daniel was described as a selfless person. However, they got a lead after a detective from the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department called and informed them about dealing with a similar case.

The shocking discovery of a similar crime taking place eight days before Daniel’s death helped the investigator link the two crimes.

Dateline: The Grudge - Marc Angelucci’s murder helped the investigator find out about Roy Den Hollander

On July 11, 2020, it was reported that attorney Marc Angelucci was killed similarly when he opened the door for a deliveryman. As per Dateline, on July 20, Hollander was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound near his car, where documents with Angelucci and Salas’s anime were also found.

After a thorough investigation, they discovered that Hollander was a part of Angelucci’s non-profit organization, National Coalition for Men, from which he was removed. Furthermore, he was also not named in the 2013 lawsuit, National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System. All of this angered him, and the police believed that he killed Angelucci out of rage.

Furthermore, they also found out that Hollander was a misogynist and had hatred toward women in his manifesto. The police believe that Hollander tried to kill Salas due to her taking too much time in the case that he filed, which challenges the military’s male-only draft.

In 2022, President Joe Biden signed a new law named after Salas’s son, Daniel, called the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act. This act protects the personal information of Judges and their families to prevent their lives from future dangers like these.

The Dateline episode showcases Judge Esther Salas talking about the tragic day she lost her only child, and also consists of interviews with investigators who helped solve the case.

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Also Read: Dateline: The Devil's in the Details - Everything we know about the latest true crime episode

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