Forensics ties infamous serial killer to 50-year-old murder

For a half-century since her horrible, tragic death in 1965, the family of 18-year-old Mary Agnes Klinsky of Hazlet lived with the agony of not knowing who was responsible. That's over now, as DNA and related evidence leads investigators to a killer who ravaged the region in the 1960s.

Information released by acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni revealed that the trail led to Robert Zarinsky, who died in 2008 in Woods State Prison in Bridgeton.

Two of Mary Klinsky's siblings, on behalf of their family, acknowledged the accomplishment, and the sense of closure, Wednesday in Freehold.

At the time of his death, Zarinsky was serving a life sentence on a 1975 conviction for the 1969 murder of Rosemary Calandriello, 17, of Atlantic Highlands, and awaiting trial for the 1968 killing of Jane Durrua, 13, of Keansburg.

Had he lived, he would have been charged with homicide and sexual assault, Gramiccioni said.

The Raritan High School senior's body, was found by Garden State Parkway workers near Exit 116 on the afternoon of September 16, 1965. It was unclad, face-down, and exhibiting signs of extreme physical trauma behind a guard rail, investigators said.

They established her identity mainly through a high school rink etched with the initials "MAK." Autopsy results revealed mutliple skull fractures and signs of sexual assault prior to death.

Evidence from the scene and the autopsy took investigators only so far in the age before technology was capable of developing a DNA profile, authorities said.

As cold as the case seemed, county investigators, New Jersey State Police, and detectives in Middletown, Keansburg, Keyport, Hazlet and Union Beach and several Middlesex County departments kept developing and interviewing potential suspects.

Equipment capable of sensing and amplifying DNA profiles allowed investigators to take a new look at biological evidence, and establish corroborative data to support findings of Zarinsky's whereabouts and motives at the time of Klinsky's death, authorities said.

In a prepared remark, Gramiccioni credited sheer determination with bringing about resolution. "After more than half a century, [Klinsky family members] know who killed their sister and the residents of Monmouth County have a clearer understanding of the murderous reach of one of our most notorious serial killers," he said.

New Jersey State Police Colonel Rick Fuentes added, "As a result of unwavering determination by our Major Crimes Unit, detectives submitted all of the evidence in this 50-year-old murder for state-of-the-art analysis by the New Jersey State Police Office of Forensic Sciences."