Naman Shrestha
In NBC’s ‘Dateline: The Grudge,’ the primary focus is on the 2020 killings of Daniel Anderl and Marc Angelucci that took place in New Jersey and California, respectively, in the span of eight days. Daniel’s sudden demise left a heavy void in the heart of his mother, Esther Salas, a prominent federal judge in New Jersey. She was also on the brink of losing her husband, Mark Anderl, who was also shot during the tragic shooting. Esther features in the documentary and recounts her experience of grief and her fight for justice.
Esther Salas Lost Her Only Son to Gun Violence During His Vacations
Born in 1968 in Monterey Park, California, to Aurelia Salas and a Mexican father, Esther Salas is the youngest of her four siblings and grew up with them in Union City, New Jersey. Later in life, while working as an intern in the prosecutor’s office, she crossed paths with Mark Anderl, who worked in the Homicide Department, in the early 1990s. They began dating and, in 1993, made their relationship official in the eyes of the law. Excited to start a family of their own, the couple lost a total of three children in miscarriages before Esther gave birth to their son, Daniel Anderl, in July 2000 in New Jersey.
By 2020, Esther had become a U.S. District Judge in the District of New Jersey, and Mark had been working as a defense attorney. That summer, their 20-year-old son had come home to be with them before starting his junior year at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. According to authorities, on July 19, 2020, a shooter posing as a deliveryman came to Esther’s house and shot Daniel to death before severely injuring Mark. The following day, law enforcement found the suspected shooter, Roy Den Hollander, dead in the town of Rockland in upstate New York from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators reported that the self-described antifeminist also possessed a dossier on Esther in his rental car, found near his remains.
Esther Salas Continues to Raise Her Voice For the Safety of Judges
Before making history as the first Hispanic woman to serve as a United States magistrate judge, Esther Salas worked hard and moved up the ranks slowly and steadily. The 1987 Emerson High School graduate attended Rutgers University, then went on to Rutgers Law School to earn a doctorate of jurisprudence. She claimed that being a part of the Minority Student Program at the law school helped her achieve her academic objectives. After graduating from law school, Esther worked as a law clerk under Eugene J. Codey Jr. of the Superior Court of New Jersey. For a couple of years, between 1995 and 1997, she was employed at Garces & Grabler, P.C. Then, she moved on to become an Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of New Jersey.
In the early 2000s, Esther was made the President of the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey and the Hispanic Bar Foundation of New Jersey. From 2006 to 2011, she served as a United States magistrate judge in the District of New Jersey before becoming a United States District Judge of the same court. Moreover, she has been a key member of the Supreme Court Committee on Minority Concerns, the Governor’s Hispanic Advisory Committee for Policy Development, and the Supreme Court Committee on Women in the Courts. After losing her son in July 2020, Esther was at the forefront of efforts to pass the bipartisan Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act of 2021. In 2024, Esther was honored with the Raphael Lemkin Rule of Law Guardian Medal for her efforts to protect judges and their families from physical harm.
The following year, on April 24, 2025, she was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni. In September of the same year, she was also the special guest at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of her namesake school, Esther Salas Academy in Union City, New Jersey. In April 2026, during an American Bar Association conference in Boston, Esther raised concerns about Congress weakening state laws that protect judges, as a possibility of lawmakers considering preempting state laws. She said that “all of a sudden they get wiped away with a federal law that very well may weaken the protection of judges all over this country.” Esther prefers to keep personal details of her life and family away from the limelight, but it is certain that she still carries her late son’s memories in her heart.
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