In Asbury Park, New Jersey, a struggling young marijuana dealer had been keeping an envious eye on his “friendly neighborhood” rival. But it was his relationship with his girlfriend that prosecutors say pushed 20 year-old Joseph “Joey” Villani to shoot and kill his victim, 28 year-old Trupal Patel, in cold blood.

Villani and his 19 year-old girlfriend, Raquel Garajau, claimed to police that Patel’s death was a simple case of self defense. But a damning string of text messages, a tell-tale stolen watch, and an unwitting assistant’s testimony all blew a hole in that story — and helped investigators prove that Villani and Garajau had schemed together to eliminate their victim in hopes of claiming a taste of his success, as seen on Snapped: Killer Couples, airing on Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen.

What happened to Trupal Patel?

Trupal Patel was only a day away from his 29th birthday when Tracy, his girlfriend, informed Asbury Park police that he had gone missing. Tracy and her friends aided police by pointing out some unique identifying markers about Trupal that could help as they began their search.

Patel had a large Buddha tattoo on his back, and was known to wear a pricey black Movado watch. He also drove a 2003 Jaguar with an uncommon manual transmission configuration — a fact that would later be instrumental in leading police to their suspect, as seen on Snapped: Killer Couples.

Concerned that Trupal hadn’t responded to her calls, Tracy reported Patel missing in February 2017. While local police put out a missing-persons bulletin, Tracy and her friends conducted their own independent search on the side, posting fliers across the Asbury Park area to solicit the public’s help.

Investigators got their first break when Patel’s vehicle turned up, after a tow truck driver informed police that someone claiming to be locked out of the car had called an auto service for assistance. It was Tracy, in fact, who had actually placed the call — still reluctant to divulge to police the full scope of Patel’s drug-dealing activities. But after she couldn’t prove to the auto service that she was the vehicle’s owner, she came clean with investigators, clearing their suspicions that she might be a suspect in his disappearance.

Patel’s car showed no signs of a body or foul play, and the search continued for almost two weeks. Finally, investigators in Monmouth County received a report from a park ranger of a dead body wrapped in a blanket in nearby Shark River Park. After observing the Buddha tattoo on the victim’s back, their missing-persons focus shifted instead to homicide.

Patel’s body was discovered with three gunshot wounds from a .22 caliber rifle — two to his head, and one to his chest. Evidence at the scene suggested his murder hadn’t occurred at Shark River Park, but rather that the perpetrator had used the relatively remote location to dispose of his dead body.

Though he sold marijuana, Patel wasn’t known for treading into crime’s darkest territory. “He could be described as sort of your ‘friendly neighborhood’ marijuana dealer,” Monmouth County assistant prosecutor Melanie Falco told Snapped: Killer Couples. “He predominantly sold marijuana to suburban middle class individuals.”

“Everyone had great things to say about him,” added Detective Pamela Smith of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. “He was friendly. He was generous. He was never intimidating. He was never threatening. So it came as a shock to people when they learned that he was dead.”

With no obvious enemies for police to scrutinize, they caught another break when Tyler Yuhas — a friend of Joey Villani’s — came forward with new information about Patel’s car. Villani, Falco told Snapped: Killer Couples, “needed Tyler’s help driving it — because Villani could not drive a stick shift car — [saying] that the vehicle had to be moved to an auto body shop in Asbury Park.”

Yuhas explained to investigators that Villani had told him the car was a relative’s, and that he needed Yuhas to drive it to a local mechanic for a brake job. But when he arrived at the business, Villani suddenly changed his story, persuading Yuhas to simply ditch the vehicle and leave with him instead.

“In between that time of us leaving, and him going to drop me off, I’m like, ‘This just doesn’t sound right,’” recalled Yuhas, who fully cooperated with police. “None of this sounds right. Like, ‘I just screwed up big time. I just did something wrong.’”

How Joseph Villani and Raquel Garajau were caught

With Tyler’s new information, investigators now had a possible suspect in Joey Villani, and as they searched for a possible motive, it didn’t take long for them to examine his relationship with his girlfriend Raquel Garajau, a well-regarded honors student at nearby Brookdale Community College.

“Anybody who knew them knew that they had a pretty toxic, sometimes volatile relationship,” legal analyst Jonna Spilbor told Snapped: Killer Couplesl

“They’d use drugs — in particular marijuana,” added Falco, “and they also dealt in smaller quantities of marijuana amongst their friend circle and other kids that they knew in the area.”

Police soon learned that Villani harbored some measure of envy for Patel’s success in the local marijuana trade: “I know Joey used to always say how he wanted to meet Trupal,” explained Yuhas. “He would jokingly say that he wanted to meet him so he could rob him.”

Police picked up Villani and Garajau together, after leaning on Yuhas to place a monitored phone call about getting their stories straight over what became of the murder victim’s car. Under questioning in separate interview rooms, each suspect at first denied direct involvement in Patel’s death… until investigators pointed out that Villani had been wearing what appeared to be Patel’s missing Movado watch at the time he was taken into custody.

“When it became clear that his story was not matching with evidence that we had, he — at one point in his interview — kind of throws his hands up and says, ‘All right, I did it,’” recalled Smith.

Closed circuit footage from Villani’s questioning session inside the police station shows him shouting a desperate parting lovers’ farewell to Garajau, who could hear him through the walls that separated their two interview rooms.

Though Garajau was initially freed for lack of incriminating evidence, she was soon back in custody once investigators had examined her cell phone history. Recovered text messages showed that Garajau knew about her boyfriend’s plan to kill Patel, and even that Garajau tried to help him conceal evidence: “She was instructing him to wipe the bullets down, thinking he would leave fingerprints on them,” explained Falco on Snapped: Killer Couples.

“She was just telling Joey kind of like how to deal with it — like cleanup, bleach, everything,” added Monmouth County assistant prosecutor Stephanie Dugan. “It was just very cold — no remorse was found in any of their text messages.”

With all the evidence collected, investigators retraced the events that led to Trupal Patel’s murder. Police believe he had agreed to visit Joey Villani’s home “to just make another drug sale,” according to Dugan, but that Villani was lying in wait inside his garage with a .22 caliber rifle. After shooting Patel three times, he and Garajau left Patel’s body in place for several hours while they took his watch and money and went shopping.

“They go to the mall, to Pandora, and Joey buys Raquel a promise ring that she’s been asking him for, in cash, for $400,” said Falco. “…We believe that Trupal’s body was in Joey Villani’s garage from about the time of the homicide — which we put at about 4 o’clock on February 6 — until sometime later that night into the early hours of the following morning.”

At her 2018 trial, Garajau was found guilty of a litany of offenses stemming from Patel’s death, including first degree felony murder. Her first opportunity to be eligible for parole will come at age 50, in 2047, according to Snapped: Killer Couples. Villani pleaded guilty in 2019 to first-degree aggravated manslaughter, among other charges. He will be eligible for parole in 2042, at the age of 46.