UPDATE: DNA linked co-worker to lunch break stabbing of 26-year-old, complaint says

A New Jersey man has been charged with waiting at his co-worker’s apartment and killing her when she returned home for a lunch break at her Plainsboro apartment in June, authorities said.

Kenneth C. Saal, 30, was arrested Wednesday at his home in Lindenwold and charged with first-degree murder and a third-degree weapon charge in the killing of Carolyn Byington, 26, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.

Saal and Byington worked at Engine, a marketing firm in the Plainsboro area, police said. Saal’s profile on LinkedIn lists his job as staff accountant.

Byington was found dead in her home on June 10 after police conducted a wellness check when she didn’t come back to work after lunch, officials said.

Byington’s alleged killer was waiting for her at the apartment in the Hunters Glen complex, sources told NJ Advance Media shortly after the slaying. Neighbors said they heard faint screams and the sound of furniture moving in her apartment around lunchtime, officials said.

Byington, who grew up in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards Township, graduated from Ridge High School and was a 2015 graduate of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where she was a double major in international affairs and anthropology and sociology.

Officials have not released her cause of death and continue to investigate the death. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Tim McMahon of the Plainsboro Police Department at 609-799-2333 ext. 1627, or Detective David Abromaitis of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office at 732-745-4436.

Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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