New Jersey

The troopers found Santiago standing beside his car and Dymka’s body in the back seat, according to the affidavit. Santiago described what happened and admitted to hitting the victim with his car, police said in the affidavit filed in Bloomfield Municipal Court.

He appeared intoxicated and was taken for blood testing, the affidavit says. But Santiago, despite appearing drunk and having admitted to moving a dead body, was not arrested at the scene. He was not charged until more than three weeks later.

Policing experts said it was curious that the troopers did not give Santiago a breathalyzer test on the scene. Had they done so, and had Santiago failed, he may have been arrested on the spot.

“If they have no good explanation, like the breathalyzer did not work, or they didn’t have it for whatever reason, then the only explanation that comes to my mind is that they engaged in what we refer to as ‘professional courtesy,’” said Nancy Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

She described that as “wrong, unethical and quite possibly in direct violation of their departmental SOPs,” or standard operating procedures.