Earlier this week authorities were not releasing all of the circumstances surrounding an incident on Interstate 195 in Howell that took the life of a New Jersey State Police trooper on June 6.

Marc K. Castellano “I am not going to comment on that,” said Peter E. Warshaw Jr., first assistant prosecutor in the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office. “It’s not relevant. The circumstances surrounding the collision [involving the officer] are under investigation. I am not going to comment.”

Trooper Marc K. Castellano, 29, of Howell, a graduate of the New Jersey State Police Academy in 2004, was killed on the highway. He leaves behind a wife and two young children.

At the time of his death, Castellano was assisting in a search for the occupants of an abandoned 2010 Ford Fusion at about 10 a.m. near the Exit 31 exit ramp of Interstate 195 westbound when he was struck by a Volkswagen Jetta being driven by Robert Swan, 20, of Jackson, Warshaw said.

Castellano was transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune, and died several hours after the collision with Swan’s car. The cause of death was blunt force trauma related to the collision, Warshaw said.

A day after the incident, the New Jersey State Police provided few details about the matter.

“It’s still under investigation,” Communications Director Capt. Gerald Lewis Jr. said on June 7. “He [Castellano] was not in the road, not in the drivable portions of the road.”

Diana Hoffman, 30, of Blackwood, was arrested in connection with the abandoned car that precipitated the police search along the highway.

Police began following Hoffman on the Garden State Parkway in Brick Township near Exit 91. The pursuit continued when she exited the parkway at Exit 98 in Wall Township and continued on area roads, including Interstate 195, Warshaw said.

Hoffman was eventually taken into custody in the area of Exit 31 in Howell, he said.

Hoffman was charged with second-degree eluding, thirddegree hindering, resisting arrest by physical force against an officer, third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance [CDS] believed to be heroin, and third-degree possession of CDS believed to be cocaine, Warshaw said.

Hoffman made a first appearance before Superior Court Judge Thomas Scully on June 7 in Freehold.

Published reports later indicated that Hoffman was also charged with creating a false public alarm that eventually led to the death of the officer.

The false public alarm was reported to be Hoffman’s claim that an armed individual had been with her in the car. No such person was found during a police search of the area near Interstate 195.

Hoffman’s total bail was reported to be $1.2 million and she was lodged in the Monmouth County jail.

Howell Mayor Robert F. Walsh visited Castellano’s family at the hospital shortly before the trooper died.

“I really don’t want to talk about it much,” the mayor said on June 8. “It was horrible. It was a tragic loss of life.”

Castellano was a member of the Troop C Tactical Patrol Unit. State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes was at the hospital with Castellano’s family on June 6.

“The loss of Trooper Castellano is a difficult blow to absorb,” Fuentes said. “The New Jersey State Police prides itself on being a family, and the loss of our brother will be felt throughout the entire Division of State Police.”