NEW JERSEY GIRL MURDERS 1960-1980
Case Histories in Chronological Order

Sophie Olejnik, 14
1963 June 2       Hillsborough, Somerset County, NJ

Cause of death: forcible drowning.  

Forensic characteristics:  abducted or ambushed - killed in the vicinity of the encounter - on rural road and bush terrain - found facedown in six-inches of water on bank of creek - mud and sand found in mouth - clad in orange blouse ripped open in front -  peddle-pusher/toreador style pants partly pulled down - no penetrative rape reported or determined -  walked or forced through bush on footpath from road to creek - drowned forcibly by head being held in mud and creek - purse found on the opposite bank of the creek with contents intact - Sunday afternoon.

Sophie Olejnik,14, June 2, 1963 departed her home at 49 N. 11th Avenue, Manville, Somerset County to attend an afternoon dance at the Polish Falcons Camp.. Last seen 2:30 walking on Champlain and turning south down Sunnymeade Road the Polish Falcon Camp on Falcon Road, approximately 1.2 miles away.

Found June 8, 1963 face down in six inches of water in Royces Brook, according to newspaper "200 yards upstream from Sunnymeade Road" and "600-800 yards south of where last seen at Champlain Road,  Hillsborough, N.J.

Eleanor Sophia Lynch (Grosshans), 28
1964 Jan 13    372 Mount Prospect Ave, Newark, Essex County, NJ

Cause of death:  "Multiple stab wounds to both sides of chest, penetrating both lungs; bi-lateral hemo thorax, stab wound of lower back penetrating Liver, Hemo Peritoneum." (Dr. Edwin Albano Chief ME Essex County)

Forensic characteristics:  victim abducted shortly after 12:30 a.m. from place of work (motel office) -  transported in perpetrator's vehicle to a second location.

Eleanor Sophia Lynch, 28, was found Monday 7:00 a.m. at 372 Mount Prospect Ave, Newark, Essex County, N.J. Cromwell Terrace Apartments, in the basement boiler room. She was face down on the floor - 62 stab wounds to chest, back and side inflicted by 2-and-a-half-inch pocket-knife blade  The door to basement and boiler room was usually kept unlocked according to the custodian who discovered her body.  Time of death was estimated at 4:00 a.m.

POSSIBLY STAGED TO APPEAR LIKE A SEXUAL HOMICIDE REPORTED IN TRUE CRIME MAGAZINES EXTENSIVELY IN THAT PERIOD:  CONTACT US FOR INQUIRIES OR WITH INFORMATION

Employed as desk clerk at Dixie Motel on Route 1 in Woodbridge where she was last seen early Monday morning 12:30 a.m. at next-door diner. Remnants of take-out dinner found on desk in motel office along with the victim's purse with identification.  Her car found in parking lot at motel. $93 and a TV set missing from motel - night of Sunday-Monday.  

Resided at 153 Cooper Street, Iselin, Woodbridge, NJ.  Separated. Mother of three. Identified by her father Alfred Grosshans, Union NJ, and Mrs. Anna Foley a co-employee.  Estranged husband Edward Lynch, 29, determined to have been living in California since October 1963 and residing there at the time of the murder at 3359 Canyon Crest Drive, Altadena, California.   Case oddly under-reported in newspapers.

Anne Rubenstein, 41 & Mae Rubenstein, 12   [ DOUBLE HOMICIDE ]
1965 February 13    437 South Third Ave in Highland Park, Middlesex County, NJ

Cause of death: child Mae stabbed 15 times with death caused by severing the jugular vein; Anne stabbed 35 times stab wound to the left chest heart causing death

Forensic characteristics:  double murder - in home -  no penetrative sexual assault reported - no theft -Stabbing - female child 12 years-old initial victim found in kitchen - mother found in entryway. Victims murdered in home.  Saturday afternoon murder. 

Mae Rubenstein was left alone in house while mother Anne was shopping. Anne was slain in the front foyer leading to the bedroom when she returned home probably after Mae was murdered in the kitchen. Victims were stabbed in the neck, face and chest by a long-bladed kitchen knife. Anne was still wearing heavy wool coat and groceries were found on the floor by her. Scuffle marks were visible on the floor. More than a hundred dollars were found at the scene and nothing appeared to be stolen. Murdered on Saturday between 12:30 pm and 2:30 pm in the first floor apartment of their home. Bodies discovered at 2:30 pm by nine-year-old nephew visiting. Bodies removed from the scene by funeral home by 6:00 pm. Father and older brother away at work.

Mary Ann Klinsky, 18  CASE CLOSED 2016
1965 September 16     Exit 116, Garden State Parkway, Holmdale, Monmouth County, NJ

Cause of death: blunt trauma skull fracture intracranial bleeding.

Forensic characteristics:  penetrative rape reported.  Wednesday night murder.

Found nude, battered to death, raped on a Thursday around 3:00 p.m.  Cause of death: blunt trauma skull fracture intracranial bleeding. Disappeared the night before. Penetrative rape according to the media.  Last seen 1965 Sept 15, apx. 9:00 p.m. on Keansburg Boardwalk.

DNA evidence in 2016 identified serial killer Robert Zarinsky as the perpetrator.

Alys Jean Eberhardt, 18
1965 September 24     3-34 Saddle River Road, Fair Lawn, Bergen County, NJ

Cause of death: double skull fracture with a blunt object to left and right side of head.

Forensic characteristics: 61 post-mortem stab wounds to neck and chest with 18-inch kitchen knife, found protruding from neck.  Souvenir letter opener dagger left at scene on the floor between the victim's legs by perpetrator. Clothing and bra pushed up around victim's neck, nude to the waist, lying on her back. Victim murdered in home. No penetrative rape according to media reports.  Victim might have been wearing a white student nurse uniform.  Friday afternoon murder.

Student nurse left dormitory at Hackensack Hospital School of Nursing 2:30 pm to go home and found in her home in the living room [den] by her father at 5:30 p.m.  No sign of forced entry.  Attack began in bedroom upstairs and progressed down the stairs into the living room [den].  Murdered Friday between 4:15 and 5:15 pm.

Stabbed post-mortem 60 times with an 18-inch kitchen knife in the neck and chest.  Kitchen knife protruding from the neck. 

A four-inch souvenir curved dagger from the Jordanian Pavilion  at New York Worlds Fair 1964-65 was brought to the scene by the perpetrator and found on the floor between the victim's legs.  Only one thousand daggers made and sold at the Jordanian Pavilion Worlds Fair or in New York City at the House of Jordan store on 38th Street and Third Avenue and the Acropolis 44th Street and Eighth Avenue.  Sheath never found.

Joanne Fantazier, 17
1966 Feb 11     Colts Neck Township, Monmouth County, NJ.

Cause of death: brain hemorrhage due to blunt force trauma to back of the head and hypothermia.

Forensic characteristics:  Abducted Thursday night. Struck with blunt object back of the head. Thrown off the bridge while still alive but unconscious. Found clad in red dress and raccoon fur coat.  High heel leather shoes missing. Purse with personal items and papers found by side of road. No evident sexual assault.

February 10, 1966, Thursday, 6:30 pm. left home from 612 Florida Grove Road, Perth Amboy, to visit girlfriend. Last seen at the  Delaney-Dunlap housing projects near her home.

Found Friday, February 11 in Colts Neck Township, face down on ice of Yellow Brook at Muhlenbrink Road bridge. Dropped from bridge twelve feet below.

Wendy Sue Wolin Fleischner, 7
1966 March 8     Irvington and Prince Street, Elizabeth, Union  County, NJ

Cause of death: stab to the chest.

Forensic characteristics: 7 year-old child victim.  Murdered in street. Single stab wound.  Possibly disguised or wearing human mask. Tuesday afternoon murder. 

Murdered on a Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. Stabbed once in the chest with a hunting knife while walking on Irvington Street to wait for her mother as she was pulling out her car from the rear of their nearby apartment building. Died an hour later. Children who witnessed the stabbing described a middle-aged white man in his mid-forties, stocky, about 220 lbs, with thick grey hair, “lifeless” pale face, wearing a dark grey or brown felt fedora and olive green three-quarter length corduroy coat and grey pants. Subject walked around to Prince Street dropping the hunting knife about 200 feet away from the scene.

Other adult witnesses report seeing a subject matching a similar description in the vicinity shortly prior to the murder, assaulting and accosting two other  girls.

Catherine Baker, 16
1966-03-17     Edison Township, Middlesex County/Jackson Township, Ocean County, NJ.

Cause of death: multiple skull fractures and lacerations.

Forensic characteristics: abducted near home and a shopping center - found in water - nude from waist down - beaten about the head - sexual assault indetermined due to decomposition

Thurs March 17 1966, 7:00 pm left home at 48 Gurley Road in Nixon, Edison Township to a bakery a block away in the Edison Shopping Center on Woodbridge Avenue, to buy cupcakes for her mother. Witnesses claimed to have seen her in the vicinity at 8:50 pm.

Baker was wearing pink sweater, brown pants and three-quarter length green suede jacket and glasses.

May 14, 1966 Found in water south branch Metedeconk River near Cook's Bridge, Jackson Township. (226 N Cooks Bridge Rd, Jackson Township, New Jersey.)

August 13, 1966 Ivan Joseph Rule, 18, of 102 Mill Road committed suicide in his cell when he was detained for questioning. Rule had briefly dated Baker. A letter was found by police written by Baker to a friend in which she stated that Rule threatened to kill her if she dated anyone else. Rule, who might have not known that he was detained as a suspect in the Baker murder, was on probation for a conviction in auto registration fraud and might have become distraught at the possibility of being returned to a reformatory. He hung himself with his own belt which police failed to secure prior to locking him in a holding cell.

Janet Ipsaro Adams, 18
1966 April 4      329 E. Midland Avenue, Paramus, Bergen County, NJ

Cause of death: ligature strangulation.

Forensic characteristics:  post-mortem stab wound. Sexual activity but no indications of forcible rape.  Murdered in home.  Monday afternoon murder.

Murdered on a  between 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm. Found nude in her second story garage apartment on bathroom floor. Strangled with husband’s neck tie (or hairnet) in bedroom. Signs of recent sexual activity.  Bra torn. Dragged into bathroom. Found in bathtub half filled with water. Bruised on the forehead and scratches on hands. Four-inch scissors driven into in her left breast post-mortem. Strangulation cause of death.  Married several days before.  Wedding party with some forty teenage guests on Sunday night. Last seen buying cleaning supplies and thank-you notes at about 1:00 pm Monday.  Found by landlord after 3:00 pm.

Carol Ann Farino, 18
1966 Nov 03      22 Sommer Ave, Maplewood, Essex County, NJ

Cause of death: ligature strangulation.

Forensic characteristics: Abducted. Found laying on her back, head pointing west, about 20-25 feet from the side walk. Dressed in what appeared to be a white uniform, had no shoes or stockings on, a pink girdle wrapped around her right ankle. Wearing panties which did not appear to be disturbed. Her uniform was unbuttoned at the front but there did not appear to be any tears in her clothing, and the white uniform was not smudged or dirty. Her legs were exposed almost to the waist and were clean, no scratches of smudges. Deep strangulation mark around the neck where her nylon stocking was knotted tightly. Thursday evening murder. One stocking and shoes missing.

Found at 8:45 PM. in driveway 25-feet away from the curb of a home at 22 Sommer Ave, Maplewood, NJ.   Killed about 25 minutes prior to being discovered. Found 8 blocks from her home at 5 Jefferson Street.

Believed to have been carried from a vehicle about 25 feet to the site.  No information on penetrative rape.

Carol Ann Farino left work Nov 3, 1966 from Milt's Cup and Saucer at 174 Maplewood at 7:30  p.m.  She stopped in George's Luncheonette at 153 Maplewood for a soda and spoke with the owner from about 7:35-7:50.  Farino was last seen by a girlfriend at Maplewood Center at 193 Maplewood at 8:00 p.m.

Gail Gawlick, a fellow-worker at the Milt's strated a tall, thin man in his 20s with light hair and a mustache driving a late-model blue Chevrolet attempted to persuade her to get into his car a few days earlier in front of the store.

Mary Ann Della Sala, 18
1967 Jan 24      Passaic River near Ryerson Way, Hawthorne, Bergen County, NJ

Cause of death: undetermined.

Forensic characteristics: Found in river fully clothed - disappeared on the way home from work in store. 

On Tuesday, January 24, 1967, at approximately 9 p.m., Mary Ann Della Sala, age 17, of 150 Hobart Street in Hackensack, NJ, finished her shift at the Shop Rite located on 330 Essex Street, in Hackensack. Mary Ann was reportedly offered a ride by a female co-worker, but declined because it was a nice night. Mary Ann chose to walk home. The co-worker did drive another employee home to Wood-Ridge. On her way back, she did not see Mary Ann along her normal route (Essex Street to Polifly Road to Lodi Street), and assumed that Mary Ann had arrived home.

Mary Anna Della Sala was last seen wearing a light blue sweater and suede jacket with tan pants, blue shoes and a blue headband. She was carrying a shoulder strap hand bag.  She was also wearing her boyfriend’s Hackensack High School class ring which was engraved with his initials.    Victim was found in Passaic River near Ryerson Way, Hawthorne, N.J. April 10, 1967.     No cause of death determination.