Village partner killed in crash
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

MILLSTONE - A Millstone Township resident who is believed to have suffered a heart attack while driving on Agress Road on the afternoon of Oct. 20 was pronounced dead later that same day.

Michael Gatto, 50, of the Perrineville section of town, was driving his Ford F250 pickup north on Agress Road when he apparently suffered cardiac arrest, which caused him to swerve and crash into a fence on the property of 8 Agress Road, according to the New Jersey State Police.

According to police, weather conditions were rainy and the road was wet at the time of the single-vehicle accident.

Volunteers from the Millstone Town-ship First Aid Squad arrived at the scene of the accident and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Gatto, according to police.

The first aid squad transported Gatto to CentraState Medical Center, Freehold Township, where he was pronounced dead at 12:19 p.m., according to police.

The state police notified the Monmouth County Medical Examiner's Office and the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office about the accident, according to officials. However, no autopsy was performed, police said.

Gatto was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and had lived in Marlboro before moving to the Perrineville section of Millstone 11 years ago. He was married to his wife, Geor-gette, for 24 years. The couple has four children, Domenic, Maria, Phillip and Gabrielle.

Gatto was a self-employed entrepre-neur who was part of Manalapan Retail Realty Partners, a single-purpose organization formed by Gatto, Richard J. Brunelli, of Holmdel, and Phillip Rizzuti, of Colts Neck, to create The Village at Manalapan, a 135-acre mixed-use commercial-retail center at the intersection of Route 33 and Millhurst Road, Manalapan.

A funeral liturgy for Gatto was offered on Oct. 24 at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Perrineville, where Gatto was a communicant. Entombment followed at St. Gabriel's Mausoleum, Marlboro.