The it-is-what-it-is insight causes significant loathing. Despite its trite accuracy, please, allow this indulgence. The New Jersey State Prison is what it is, a place in Trenton that houses a fraternity of murderers, rapists, rapists-murderers, serial killers, etc. A Who’s Who of killers reside inside the New Jersey State Prison aka the most notorious adult care, assisted living facility ever known to mankind. It’s not the place anyone wants to end up, either as til death do us part residents on the inside of the Cass St.-area facility or on the outer wall as subject matter for a Mercer County, Artworks, New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and New Jersey Department of Corrections initiative. The image of Athing Mu never should have been placed on this New Jersey State Prison wall. And, the city’s Olympic gold-winner should be removed immediately. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of some persons being held under severe lock and key at New Jersey State Prison. Plus, a really big finish awaits before the last dot. Jesse Timmendequas is serving a sentence of life without parole.Timmendequas, twice previously convicted of sexually assaulting children, was 33 when he raped and strangled his 7-year-old neighbor Megan Kanka in Hamilton in 1994. A jury in 2007 sentenced Timmendequas to death for Kanka’s murder, but his sentence was commuted to life without parole when the Legislature abolished the death penalty in 2007. Timmendequas, 63, serves his sentence not far from his former Hamilton residence. *** Richard Cottingham, a Lodi resident, killed six women in New Jersey and New York between 1967 and 1980. He received conviction for two murders and three kidnappings in New Jersey, in addition to the murder of three women in New York. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to a third killing in New Jersey in 1967. Cottingham is serving more than 200 years for two killings in New Jersey, and a life sentence for the thirdand homicide to which he pleaded guilty in 2010. *** In 2015, Philip Seidle could not accept the breakup with his wife, so, the Neptune police sergeant chased his once-beloved Tamara Wilson-Seidle, and opened fire on her car on an Asbury Park street. After killing her, he held a gun to his head during a 45-minute standoff with police. Seidle pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter. A 30-year sentence housed him in a maximum security unit at New Jersey State Prison. *** In 1994, Cherry Hill Rabbi Fred Neulander had an affair with a popular Philadelphia DJ. One problem — he was married. Neulander hired two men to beat his wife to death and make the attack look like a botched robbery. He got 30 years at New Jersey State Prison. *** James Koedatich received conviction for kidnap, sexual assault and fatally stabbing an 18-year-old Parsippany high school student and a 25-year-old Mendham Township woman just 12 days apart in November of 1982. Months before, Koedatich, a Morristown resident, had been released from a prison in Florida after serving an 11-year sentence for strangling his roommate. He serves two life sentences and gets three hots and a cot at NJSP. *** In 2005, James Zarate, 14, and Jonathan Zarate, 18, invited neighbor Jennifer Parks, 16, to their house then gagged, stabbed, and dismembered her. They recruited a friend to help dispose of her body, but got caught after being seen dumping the trunk into a river. Both young men received life sentences although James Zarate caught a break when resentencing commuted his stay to 50 years. The brothers bunk inside New Jersey State Prison. *** In 1994, Steven Fortin grabbed Melissa Padilla, a 25-year-old mother of four, off a street in Woodbridge. He sexually assaulted the woman then killed her. His first conviction was overturned and a second trial earned Fortin a sentence of life without parole inside NJSP. *** David Cooper offered Latasha Goodman, 6, candy and ice cream before he snatched her from a backyard in Asbury Park. The 1983 abduction ended with Goodman dead after being sexually assaulted then strangled. Cooper exhausted an appeals system until New Jersey abolished the death penalty. Cooper does life without parole. *** A last mention of Ambrose Harris who grabbed Pennsylvania artist Kristen Huggins, 22, in Trenton to paint a mural in 1992. Harris carjacked, kidnapped, raped and murdered her. A jury delivered from a neighboring county due to intense media coverage found Harris guilty of murder. While on death row, Harris stomped to death fellow inmate, Robert “Mudman” Simon, who had been convicted of killing Franklin Township police Sgt. Ippolito “Lee” Gonzalez in 1995. Harris, 68, died in November 2020, at NJSP. *** The decision by Mercer County to commission seven artists to create a ‘Breaking Barriers’ mural on the Cass St. side of the New Jersey State Prison with a price tag of $150,000 ranks as a waste of money — equivalent to putting lipstick on Timmendequas or dressing Harris in an Easter bonnet. All the flowers, cuddly animals, daydreaming children, athletes, and other portraits affixed to this one wall will never camouflage the New Jersey State Prison. Stop wasting money on this whimsical pretense to make this place something it’s not. It is what it is, what it’s been for hundreds of years — home to many murderers, rapists, and cutthroats who would kill to get one unsupervised moment with Ms. Mu L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at [email protected].