EXCLUSIVE: Accused killer was paroled early after assaulting cops, making death threats

ONLY ON CLIFFVIEW PILOT: It wasn't as if Viviana Tulli didn't know the history of the man who authorities said strangled her Monday before apparently trying to commit suicide-by-cop. The ex-con had been released from prison to a halfway house earlier this year after serving time for assaulting officers and threatening a previous girlfriend in Passaic County, CLIFFVIEW PILOT has found.

David Goodell

NEWSBREAK: Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli on Tuesday confirmed a CLIFFVIEW PILOT report that an ex-con accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend and then ramming her car into a police cruiser was out on parole when the crimes occurred. CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEWS

Records show David Goodell -- accused of killing his ex-girlfriend Monday before ramming her car head-on into a police cruiser in a Ridgefield cul-de-sac -- spent less than a half-year in Northern State Prison in Newark for assaulting a police officer and threatening to kill a woman he was dating.

Born Dec. 18, 1979, the 5-foot-8 Goodell was supposed to remain behind bars until December 2011 after he was sentenced by a Passaic County judge last September, CLIFFVIEW PILOT has learned.

Under state law, he could have been sent to prison for four years on each conviction. But he was paroled in February, five months after serving what was originally a sentence of more than two years, according to records obtained by CLIFFVIEW PILOT. According to the victim's sister, Stella Tulli: "David was still serving time at a halfway house when he fake[d] a seizure and was taken to [the] hospital." From there, he took off.

Goodell was standing outside the victim's car, parked in a lot at Ridgefield Park High School, when someone called police and described him as disoriented and covered in blood.

Police who responded ended up chasing Goodell’s car into Ridgefield, where the incident came to a horrifying end.