Relatives and clients remember Michael Anthony as a devoted father and compassionate doctor after his killer’s sentencing.
HADDON HEIGHTS, N.J. — Before Michael Anthony became the victim at the center of a murder prosecution, he was the veterinarian who tried to ease an owner’s fear while treating a sick pet, the father who organized his life around two sons and the music fan whose humor filled the rooms where his family gathered.
That fuller account of Anthony’s life emerged again when relatives addressed a Camden County judge before Cristian Custodio-Aquino was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing him. The hearing on July 9 resolved the criminal case, but family members used their time in court to resist having Anthony remembered mainly through the attack outside his Cherry Hill home. They described the experiences taken from him, the relationships interrupted by his death and the personal qualities that survived in the memories of his children, siblings, partner, colleagues and clients.
Anthony, 45, owned Haddon Vet, a veterinary practice in Haddon Heights. His obituary described a doctor who understood that treating an animal often required caring for the worried person standing beside it. Clients and coworkers respected his expertise, compassion and steady attention to animal health. He had loved animals throughout his life, and veterinary medicine became both his profession and a way of serving families in the surrounding communities. His death was therefore felt beyond his immediate relatives, reaching households that knew him through years of appointments, emergencies and routine care.
Family members said his greatest pride was being the father of two sons. His sister, Patricia Anthony Gershefski, told the sentencing court that her brother had even moved his veterinary practice to remain closer to his children. The detail showed how fatherhood shaped decisions that might otherwise have appeared purely professional. His son later told the court that Anthony was no longer present to hear about college, one of countless conversations the family had expected would occur. Relatives spoke not only about major milestones but also about the ordinary future moments removed by the killing.
Anthony’s partner, Kyle Bartsch, said in a statement read in court that Anthony brought love and laughter to their home on Sharrowvale Road. The statement described the death as creating a permanent void among those who knew him. Other relatives called Anthony kind, sensitive and sharply funny. Gershefski asked that the public remember the vibrant way her brother lived rather than the violence of his last morning. Her request reflected a concern common in homicide cases: that the person who died can become less visible as attention shifts to the defendant, the evidence and the punishment.
The crime occurred on Dec. 10, 2024. Cherry Hill police responded shortly after 7 a.m. and found Anthony unconscious outside his house in the Barclay Farm neighborhood. He had been stabbed several times and was pronounced dead at the scene. Reporting about the case said one of his sons went outside after Anthony did not return from a walk and found him in the yard. The discovery placed the family at the center of the immediate trauma, long before investigators understood who had attacked Anthony or why he had been targeted.
Authorities eventually identified Custodio-Aquino, a Portland, Oregon, resident who had previously been in a relationship with Bartsch. Prosecutors said Custodio-Aquino traveled across the country and waited near Anthony’s home before the killing. They characterized jealousy connected to the former relationship as the reason for the attack. Because Custodio-Aquino pleaded guilty rather than proceeding to trial, the state’s full account was not tested through testimony and cross-examination before a jury. The conviction, however, established his legal responsibility for intentionally killing Anthony.
The physical evidence gave investigators a route from the front yard to Custodio-Aquino. Prescription eyeglasses found near Anthony carried DNA linked to him, prosecutors said. Detectives traced the glasses to a Washington state retailer that confirmed he had purchased a matching pair. License-plate readers and surveillance systems tracked his Nissan Altima around Anthony’s neighborhood, and forensic testing found Anthony’s blood inside the vehicle. Authorities also reviewed phone data and interstate travel records as they followed the car’s movement away from New Jersey.
Custodio-Aquino was charged Feb. 7, 2025, and arrested by U.S. marshals in Fresno, California, four days later. Prosecutors said he had traveled through multiple states after the homicide. A New Jersey judge later ordered him detained, citing the risk that he could flee and the danger he posed. The arrest ended the search but began more than a year of court proceedings, during which Anthony’s family waited for a resolution while continuing to manage the personal and professional changes created by his absence.
On June 9, 2026, Custodio-Aquino pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Camden County Superior Court. The agreement called for a 30-year prison sentence without early parole eligibility. Judge Judith Charny imposed that sentence one month later. CBS Philadelphia reported that Custodio-Aquino is not expected to become eligible for parole until 2055 after receiving credit for time served. He briefly addressed the court, thanked the judge for allowing relatives to speak and said the world had become lesser without Anthony.
The family’s statements did not treat the prison term as a repair for what happened. They described punishment as separate from restoration because no sentence could return Anthony to his sons or reopen the veterinary office with him inside it. One son spoke directly to Custodio-Aquino about the decades he would spend in prison. Gershefski said the defendant could not erase who Anthony had been. Their comments placed legal accountability beside a more difficult reality: a completed criminal case does not end the daily consequences of a homicide.
Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay said the guilty plea represented an important step toward justice and praised the investigators who identified Custodio-Aquino and located him in California. She also acknowledged that no result could undo the family’s loss. Her statement emphasized Anthony’s compassion and service to the community, qualities that had made his death especially painful for people who knew him through his work. The comments echoed the family’s effort to keep public attention on the veterinarian’s life instead of allowing the killer’s actions to define it.
Anthony also enjoyed jogging and music, interests that marked time outside his medical practice. Those details, modest on their own, help explain the range of absences described in court: no morning runs, no songs shared with relatives, no calls from his sons and no familiar doctor greeting anxious owners at Haddon Vet. The continuing story is therefore not only that a man received 30 years for murder. It is that a family and community are carrying forward the memory of someone whose work and relationships lasted far longer than the act that killed him.
Custodio-Aquino remains in New Jersey state custody under the sentence imposed by Charny. Anthony’s family has no further criminal trial to attend, but relatives said the effects of his death will follow them through future celebrations, graduations and routine days. The final judgment establishes accountability in court. The continuing measure of Anthony’s life rests elsewhere: in his sons, in the people he loved and in the many families who remember the veterinarian who cared for both their animals and their fears.
Author note: Last updated July 15, 2026.