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On August 19, 1999, Judith Sapsa implicated her brother Robert Zarinsky and her cousin, Theodore Schiffer, in the 1958 killing of Rahway Police Officer Charles Bernoskie. Sapsa came forth after Zarinsky accused her husband, Peter, of stealing more than 100-thousand dollars from an inheritance Zarinsky's mother had left him.
Zarinsky was convicted in 1975 of murdering the 17-year-old Atlantic Highlands girl. After Zarinsky's sister, Judith Sapsa, implicated her brother and their cousin in the cop killing, authorities in Monmouth, Union and Middlesex counties began this week focusing on Zarinsky as a possible suspect in four long-unsolved murders.
Zarinsky had been a suspect all along in the deaths of three teenage girls besides Calandriello, but was never charged in the other cases. "Let me tell you something. Back then, when we prosecuted him, we were convinced beyond a doubt that he was a serial killer," John T. Mullaney, the former assistant prosecutor in Monmouth County who tried Zarinsky in the Calandriello case. "We knew he had killed Rosemary. We also knew he had killed the two from Woodbridge, though I couldn't prove it," he said.
The bodies of Doreen Carlucci, 14, and Joanne Delardo, 15,who lived in the Colonia section of Woodbridge, were found in Monmouth County, beaten and strangled with an electrical cord.
"I also knew he killed Linda Balabanow, though they wouldn't try it," Mullaney said, referring to a Union Township teen whose body was found floating in the Raritan River in Middlesex County.
Middlesex County authorities didn't think they had enough evidence to bring Zarinsky to trial for Balabanow's murder, but Monmouth County authorities were willing to gamble.
"I stuck my head out. I just thought, there were just too many dead young females, too many bodies," Mullaney added. "There are people alive today that wouldn't be alive if he was still on the street."
Investigators with drills and saws tore apart a "haunted house" in Linden,New Jersey, looking for evidence that might link Zarinsky to the unsolved slayings of at least at least four more teenage girls. Officials from eight law enforcement agencies, including the State Police and FBI, were hoping to find personal belongings that Robert Zarinsky, 59, might have taken from his victims and stashed in the house he inherited from his mother.
Judith Sapsa, his sister, startled authorities in recent weeks by talking about her brother's role in Bernoskie's slaying as well as in the disappearance of "five to 10" girls. Sapsa, described to police her childhood home under the "hypnotic" domination by her sadistic brother Robert who repeatedly beat her, debased their father, and tortured animals.
Judith came forward after her husband, Peter, was charged in June with stealing $110,500 from a mutual fund that Zarinsky inherited when their mother died in 1995. Zarinsky, now at Northern State Prison in Newark, unwittingly inspired the new investigations by reporting the missing money.
According to police the Sapsas took the money because of mounting medical bills. Peter Sapsa worked in supermarkets and is now on disability awaiting a heart transplant. Judith Sapsa, who is recovering from cancer, never worked outside the home.
In trouble since age 14 and periodically under psychiatric care, Zarinsky was arrested at age 21 for desecrating a cemetery and setting lumberyard fires. He was a self-styled Nazi who commanded two or three like-minded friends, but imagined he led an entire army.
Interrupting a robbery at a car dealership, Rahway Patrolman Bernoskie was gunned down in 1958, when Zarinsky was a teenager. No one was arrested at the time. Last week though, Zarinsky's cousin, Schiffer, was arrested in the officer's death, and Zarinsky was named as a second suspect.
Robert Zarinsky's history of violence and delusions of power began as a teenager, and at 14, he was admitted to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital.
Zarinsky, who turns 59 next month, is in prison for the 1969 murder of a 17-year-old Atlantic Highlands girl. He has been implicated by his sister in the 1958 slaying of a Rahway police officer, when he was 18, and is a suspect in the murders of at least four teenage girls in the late 1960s and early '70s.
The night that officer Bernoskie was gunned down, the policeman was able to get off several rounds, injuring Zarinsky. But Zarinsky's mother, Veronica, tended to his wounds at home and swore the family to silence.
When he was 21 and charged with the desecration of 1,500 headstones at the Rosedale-Linden Cemetery and setting five lumberyards on fire, he maintained he was insane and did not know right from wrong.
When he was 34 and brought in for a lineup in the murder of Rosemary Calandriello, guards were told not to let him alter his facial hair. He had long sideburns in a mutton chop style and a goatee. But when the guards were not looking, he got a hold of some hair-removal cream.
During Zarinsky's trial in 1975 for the murder of Calandriello, his wife, Lynn Zarinsky, took the stand in her husband's defense and told the jury that a pair of blue bikini panties taken from Zarinsky's car belonged to her. She also told them that she was with her husband the night of Aug. 25, 1969, when Calandriello disappeared.
Veronica doted on her son, even though he once beat Judith so badly she was out of school for two or three weeks, Weiner said. "Don't hit her in the face," was the mother's advice to her son, the lawyer said Mrs. Sapsa told him.
Demonstrating classic serial killer behavior Zarinsky, as a teenager, formed a gang, "The Panthers," and gleefully committed arson. His sister remembers his pleasure ripping the wings off a bird, or chopping the head off a bird.
Zarinsky abused his father, Julius, who ran a grocery, by pushing tomatoes into his face. When the son finished high school, he took the shop's proceeds and put his father on a $5 weekly salary. Mrs. Sapsa was about 15 in 1958 when her brother and cousin, both wounded, were brought to their Linden home by an aunt after the shootout with Officer Bernoskie, who had found the young men robbing a car dealership, Weiner said. She recalls her brother saying, "'He pissed me off, that's why I shot him,' because (Bernoskie) shot his cousin."
The young girl said she watched as her mother used tongue depressors and tweezers to extract bullets from her brother and cousin, who were spirited to the Poconos in Pennsylvania to recover. When Julius Zarinsky read in the newspaper the next day that the officer was dead, he vomited. The family never spoke about the shooting.
Julius Zarinsky was Jewish, and Veronica was not. However Robert was convicted at age 22 of desecrating hundreds of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Linden.
On August 19, 1999, Judith Sapsa implicated her brother Robert Zarinsky and her cousin, Theodore Schiffer, in the 1958 killing of Rahway Police Officer Charles Bernoskie. Sapsa came forth after Zarinsky accused her husband, Peter, of stealing more than 100-thousand dollars from an inheritance Zarinsky's mother had left him.
Zarinsky was convicted in 1975 of murdering the 17-year-old Atlantic Highlands girl. After Zarinsky's sister, Judith Sapsa, implicated her brother and their cousin in the cop killing, authorities in Monmouth, Union and Middlesex counties began this week focusing on Zarinsky as a possible suspect in four long-unsolved murders.
Zarinsky had been a suspect all along in the deaths of three teenage girls besides Calandriello, but was never charged in the other cases. "Let me tell you something. Back then, when we prosecuted him, we were convinced beyond a doubt that he was a serial killer," John T. Mullaney, the former assistant prosecutor in Monmouth County who tried Zarinsky in the Calandriello case. "We knew he had killed Rosemary. We also knew he had killed the two from Woodbridge, though I couldn't prove it," he said.
The bodies of Doreen Carlucci, 14, and Joanne Delardo, 15,who lived in the Colonia section of Woodbridge, were found in Monmouth County, beaten and strangled with an electrical cord.
"I also knew he killed Linda Balabanow, though they wouldn't try it," Mullaney said, referring to a Union Township teen whose body was found floating in the Raritan River in Middlesex County.
Middlesex County authorities didn't think they had enough evidence to bring Zarinsky to trial for Balabanow's murder, but Monmouth County authorities were willing to gamble.
"I stuck my head out. I just thought, there were just too many dead young females, too many bodies," Mullaney added. "There are people alive today that wouldn't be alive if he was still on the street."
Investigators with drills and saws tore apart a "haunted house" in Linden,New Jersey, looking for evidence that might link Zarinsky to the unsolved slayings of at least at least four more teenage girls. Officials from eight law enforcement agencies, including the State Police and FBI, were hoping to find personal belongings that Robert Zarinsky, 59, might have taken from his victims and stashed in the house he inherited from his mother.
Judith Sapsa, his sister, startled authorities in recent weeks by talking about her brother's role in Bernoskie's slaying as well as in the disappearance of "five to 10" girls. Sapsa, described to police her childhood home under the "hypnotic" domination by her sadistic brother Robert who repeatedly beat her, debased their father, and tortured animals.
Judith came forward after her husband, Peter, was charged in June with stealing $110,500 from a mutual fund that Zarinsky inherited when their mother died in 1995. Zarinsky, now at Northern State Prison in Newark, unwittingly inspired the new investigations by reporting the missing money.
According to police the Sapsas took the money because of mounting medical bills. Peter Sapsa worked in supermarkets and is now on disability awaiting a heart transplant. Judith Sapsa, who is recovering from cancer, never worked outside the home.
In trouble since age 14 and periodically under psychiatric care, Zarinsky was arrested at age 21 for desecrating a cemetery and setting lumberyard fires. He was a self-styled Nazi who commanded two or three like-minded friends, but imagined he led an entire army.
Interrupting a robbery at a car dealership, Rahway Patrolman Bernoskie was gunned down in 1958, when Zarinsky was a teenager. No one was arrested at the time. Last week though, Zarinsky's cousin, Schiffer, was arrested in the officer's death, and Zarinsky was named as a second suspect.
Robert Zarinsky's history of violence and delusions of power began as a teenager, and at 14, he was admitted to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital.
Zarinsky, who turns 59 next month, is in prison for the 1969 murder of a 17-year-old Atlantic Highlands girl. He has been implicated by his sister in the 1958 slaying of a Rahway police officer, when he was 18, and is a suspect in the murders of at least four teenage girls in the late 1960s and early '70s.
The night that officer Bernoskie was gunned down, the policeman was able to get off several rounds, injuring Zarinsky. But Zarinsky's mother, Veronica, tended to his wounds at home and swore the family to silence.
When he was 21 and charged with the desecration of 1,500 headstones at the Rosedale-Linden Cemetery and setting five lumberyards on fire, he maintained he was insane and did not know right from wrong.
When he was 34 and brought in for a lineup in the murder of Rosemary Calandriello, guards were told not to let him alter his facial hair. He had long sideburns in a mutton chop style and a goatee. But when the guards were not looking, he got a hold of some hair-removal cream.
During Zarinsky's trial in 1975 for the murder of Calandriello, his wife, Lynn Zarinsky, took the stand in her husband's defense and told the jury that a pair of blue bikini panties taken from Zarinsky's car belonged to her. She also told them that she was with her husband the night of Aug. 25, 1969, when Calandriello disappeared.
Veronica doted on her son, even though he once beat Judith so badly she was out of school for two or three weeks, Weiner said. "Don't hit her in the face," was the mother's advice to her son, the lawyer said Mrs. Sapsa told him.
Demonstrating classic serial killer behavior Zarinsky, as a teenager, formed a gang, "The Panthers," and gleefully committed arson. His sister remembers his pleasure ripping the wings off a bird, or chopping the head off a bird.
Zarinsky abused his father, Julius, who ran a grocery, by pushing tomatoes into his face. When the son finished high school, he took the shop's proceeds and put his father on a $5 weekly salary. Mrs. Sapsa was about 15 in 1958 when her brother and cousin, both wounded, were brought to their Linden home by an aunt after the shootout with Officer Bernoskie, who had found the young men robbing a car dealership, Weiner said. She recalls her brother saying, "'He pissed me off, that's why I shot him,' because (Bernoskie) shot his cousin."
The young girl said she watched as her mother used tongue depressors and tweezers to extract bullets from her brother and cousin, who were spirited to the Poconos in Pennsylvania to recover. When Julius Zarinsky read in the newspaper the next day that the officer was dead, he vomited. The family never spoke about the shooting.
Julius Zarinsky was Jewish, and Veronica was not. However Robert was convicted at age 22 of desecrating hundreds of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Linden. |
