Joseph Ragan via video from the Cape May County jail during a hearing on Feb. 12.
The Philadelphia man accused of helping kill his fiancee in her Upper Township home is now jailed in Cape May County.
Joseph Augustus Ragan IV, 22, allegedly told State Police two years ago of his part in the overdose death of Emily Cruddas.
The 21-year-old woman was found unresponsive Feb. 17, 2023, inside the home she shared with her sister. Three baggies stamped with "White House" were found nearby.
She would die of a drug overdose. But weeks later, Ragan would tell police that the woman was incapacitated by Xanax, before her sister then shot her up with a syringe containing at least a dozen baggies of heroin.
"Take your medicine," Ragan told Cruddas, holding his hand over her mouth as he watched Sarah Errickson shoot her sister full of drugs in an attempt to make it look like suicide, an affidavit reads of his confession to investigators.
Ragan detailed how he watched the woman he was supposed to marry struggle to breath for about seven hours before she died.
Timothy Barrus — who was engaged to Errickson at one point — called 911 the next day to report the apparent overdose.
But it would be nearly two full years before Barrus would come forward to corroborate Ragan's story. He is not charged at this time.
Errickson and Ragan each were charged last month with murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
By then, Ragan was living in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he was arrested Jan. 30, on a fugitive warrant.
He was extradited back to New Jersey, and had his first appearance in Cape May County Superior Court on Wednesday, via video from a room in the county jail.
Ragan was informed that a motion has been filed to have him detained. A detention hearing is set for Tuesday.
Errickson already had her detention hearing, where she was ordered to remain jailed pending trial.
It was allegedly the 36-year-old woman's idea to kill her sister and make it look like a suicide.
Cruddas had just been released from the hospital, where she was taken after attempting to kill herself following a miscarriage of the child she and Ragan were expecting.
“I’m so excited to have you by my side through thick and thin,” she wrote in a TikTok post Jan. 18, 2023, that included a photo array of her and Joseph Ragan, and a picture of four positive pregnancy tests.
