Robert Zarinsky
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Robert Zarinsky is a convicted serial killer from Rahway, New Jersey. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1969 murder of Rosemary Calandriello of Atlantic Highlands. On March 11, 2008, he was indicted for the 1968 murder of Jane Durrua of Keansburg. He was acquitted in 2001 of the 1958 murder of Rahway police officer Charles Bernoskie. He also is a suspect in the murders of Linda Balabanow, Doreen Carlucci and Joanne Delardo of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey.
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[edit] Calandriello Murder
Rosemary Calandriello was a 17-year-old girl from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, who disappeared on October 25, 1969. Her body was never recovered. Zarinsky was convicted in 1975 of her murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1988, Zarinsky admitted that he had accidentally killed her and buried her body in a grave in northwest New Jersey. He also stated to another investigator that he had thrown her body into the Atlantic Ocean. Zarinsky was the first person in New Jersey ever to be convicted of murder without a body being found. As of April 2008, he is incarcerated in the New Jersey prison system. [1]
[edit] Cop Killer?
[2] In 2001, Zarinsky was tried and acquitted of the November 28, 1958 murder of Rahway police officer Charles Bernoskie. Bernoskie stumbled upon a burglary in progress at Miller Pontiac in Rahway. He was shot and killed by one of the perpetrators of the crime, either Zarinsky or Theodore Schiffer. Bernoskie shot both suspects who both were able to elude capture. No one was charged with the crime until 1999.
Theodore Schiffer left a fingerprint at the scene of the crime, but it was not until 1999 that the fingerprint was able to be matched to Schiffer. He had never been fingerprinted and therefore there was no record of his fingerprints. Schiffer was implicated in the murder by Zarinsky’s sister Judith Sapsa, who herself was under investigation for embezzling money from a mutual fund account owned by Robert Zarinsky. Theodore Schiffer testified against Zarinsky, pleaded guilty and served three years in Pennsylvania for the crime.
Zarinsky contacted the authorities when his yearly statement of his mutual fund account that he had inherited from his mother did not arrive at his prison address. He discovered that his sister and her husband Peter Sapsa had nearly emptied the account by embezzling $121,500 from it. Judith Sapsa would later testify at the Bernoskie murder trial that she assisted her mother with removing bullets from Zarinsky and Schiffer on the night of the Bernoskie murder. Sapsa also testified that Zarinsky stated to her that “Teddy and I shot a cop." Despite the testimony of Schiffer and Sapsa, Zarinsky was acquitted of the Bernoskie murder.
The same month that Robert Zarinsky was indicted for the murder, Bette Bernoskie, the widow of Charles Bernoskie, filed a wrongful death suit against Zarinsky in civil court. In August 2003, a jury found Zarinsky responsible for the death and awarded Bette Bernoskie $9,500,000 plus interest. In 2004, $154,000 was seized from Zarinsky’s assets and Bette Bernoskie divided her award among her six children. In July 2007, a New Jersey Appellate Court reversed the decision and ordered the money returned to Zarinsky, citing his inability to put on a proper defense. Bette Bernoskie no longer had the money and the NJ PBA has organized efforts to repay the money. It is their intention that neither Bette Bernoskie or her children will ever give back the award money.
[edit] Durrua Murder
On March 11, 2008, the grand jury sitting in Freehold, New Jersey, returned an indictment against Zarinsky for the 1968 murder of 13-year-old Jane Durrua. [3] Durrua disappeared on the evening of November 4, 1968 and body was found the next morning in a field in North Middletown, New Jersey. [4]
