the rix mix

Every year in New Jersey, a killer named Robert Zarinsky comes up for parole. He's in prison for murdering a teenage girl back in 1969. Well, murderers serve their time & go free. Except police all around Jersey have long been convinced that Zarinsky is a serial killer. They just haven't been able to put another murder on him. The killings happened long ago. They thought they had Zarinsky for shooting Rahway police officer Charles Bernoskie in 1958. Officer Bernoskie's death was still an open wound in Rahway when I moved there in 1990, a tragedy the police & the city were never going to forget. The case cracked in 1999 & they brought Zarinsky to trial in 2001, figuring on welding the prison doors shut on him. But after all those years, the prosecution's case had a little too much air in it. Bad news. Rahway police were certain they had their killer, & still are, so it's an open book but at least there was some emotional closure. The officer's widow won a civil suit against Zarinsky, then had to give the money back. It pissed everybody off. Zarinsky's prison hobby is studying law books. Reputedly, he's a good student. Bernoskie died in the line of duty, responding to the report of a burglary. That's the risk cops take every day. They carry guns. Bernoskie got to use his, & his aim, as it turned out, was true.

That left all the other unsolved murders. Defenseless young women.

Robert Zarinsky, a convicted murderer suspected in a string of unsolved killings, has been charged in the 1968 death of a Keansburg girl, according to the victim's sister.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin will announce later today that Zarinsky will be charged in the death of 13-year-old Jane Durrua, according to her sister, Joan Conway. She said authorities told her today of the charges.

"I've been waiting for this day for so many years. I have always believed it was Zarinsky," Conway said.
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Jane Durrua was sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to death on her way home from school in November of 1968. Her killing was one of several cold cases reopened after Zarinsky was charged with Bernoskie's murder.

Labels: in the news, Rahway NJ