George J. Hagal’s body was discovered just after 7:30 a.m. by borough police, who promptly placed 60-year-old David Allen Hagal under arrest. Authorities announced on Sunday, December 10. Records indicate that the younger Hagal was charged with two charges of illegal possession of weapons, including murder.
The autopsy expected on Monday by the Bergen County Medical Examiner’s Office will reveal which one caused George Hagal’s death. While everything was going on, his son was being held at the Bergen County Jail until his initial court appearance in Hackensack’s Central Judicial Processing Court.
George Hagal, a grandfather of six, just lost his 63-year wife in April. Elaine Pommerencke and George Hagal, both residents of Teaneck, both received their high school diplomas from the township. They spent 20 years living in the town after being married in 1958.
After graduating, George Hagal joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served for four years. After serving for twelve years as a police officer in Teaneck, he turned in his badge and gun to take a job as vice president of Carl Mellone & Son, the local wholesale food distributor (which is now known as Mellone Wholesale Produce of Hackensack).
PBA Local 86, which served officers in Teaneck, Englewood, Leonia, Ridgefield Park, and Bogota, had Hagal as its previous president. He participated in Little League and the Teaneck Boy Scouts. In 1978, the Hagals moved into a brand-new four-bedroom, four-bathroom house on a cul-de-sac off of Route 208 and Franklin Avenue. The Haddon Place residence is where George Hagal met his demise.
George J. Hagal’s body was discovered by police at the residence on Haddon Place close to Route 208 just after 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 10.
With support from the borough police, the ME’s Office, and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Identification, which gathered evidence, the prosecutor’s Major Crimes Unit is in charge of the patricide investigation.
