"For a lot of us, a diner is like a second home. When you go regularly, a coffee shop or a place like this is where you make new friends," Marcus Jean-Jacques, a 42-year-old North Arlington resident, said as he entered the diner at the corner of Essex and First.

"I’m not a regular here yet," he added, "but if the food is as good as people say, I’d come back. And the service, too, counts a lot. I appreciate when the wait staff goes above and beyond."

What Jean-Jacques didn’t know was that the Arena Diner has been without one of its favorite waitresses since last September. On Sept. 26, staff members at the Arena Diner reported their friend and fellow waitress, Thalia Stathis, missing after she failed to show up for work. According to co-workers, she was last seen leaving the diner after her shift at 3 a.m. on Sept. 14.

Last month, New York State troopers found a discarded vinyl bag along the busy Southern State Parkway. The bag contained a badly decomposed body, which dental records and DNA last week confirmed is that of Stathis.

According to autopsy results conducted by the Nassau County Medical Examiner’s Office, the condition of Stathis’ body led authorities to believe that she was killed soon after she was reported missing last fall.

Eyes on Francois

After Arena Diner employees notified the Hackensack Police Department of Stathis’ unknown whereabouts in September, city detectives asked the Cliffside Park Police Department to check her Jersey Avenue apartment in the borough. While visiting the home, Cliffside Park officer encountered Stathis’ boyfriend, Hugues J. Francois, who said he also lived at the apartment.

At the time, Francois, who had been dated Stathis for approximately two years, claimed he was unaware of his girlfriend’s location or if she had left town. Cliffside Park police officers said last year that Francois told them that he hadn’t seen Stathis for 10 days but didn’t report her missing because she had disappeared in the past.

During questioning, Cliffside Park police observed various forms of drugs paraphernalia in the apartment, and Francois was subsequently arrested and charged for possession. He was also charged with failure to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, following a 1997 conviction for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Bergenfield.

Additionally, Francois had served a seven-year prison term after he was convicted in 1997 of aggravated manslaughter. In that case, Francois was found guilty of shooting and killing a 19-year-old man in Teaneck’s Votee Park.

Though Stathis’ body had yet been recovered, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office arrested and charged Francois with her murder on Jan. 15. Laboratory testing conducted on blood found in the trunk of Francois’ car were consistent with Stathis’ DNA.

Authorities were preparing to prosecute Francois without a body until last month’s discovery in North Merrick, N.Y.

Francois remains in the Bergen County Jail on $2 million bail.