Robert Zarinsky was born on September 2, 1940, in Linden, New Jersey. Raised in a seemingly stable environment, there was little in his early life to suggest the darkness that would unfold. However, by his teenage years, Zarinsky had begun committing petty crimes and exhibiting erratic, disturbing behavior that eventually escalated into violence.

In the late 1950s, Zarinsky began acquiring a long list of criminal charges — including burglary, theft, and assault — and had multiple stays in psychiatric institutions. Despite this, he remained free for most of the 1960s and lived with his family in Union County, New Jersey. He often appeared calm and intelligent, which helped him avoid deeper suspicion, even when he became a person of interest in the disappearance of young women in Monmouth County.

In 1958, at the age of 18, he was suspected in the murder of Rahway police officer Charles Bernoskie, who had been gunned down during a car dealership burglary. Though Zarinsky wasn’t indicted until 2000 (more than 40 years later), the case would linger over his criminal record for decades.

Zarinsky often used threats, manipulation, and misleading information to delay legal proceedings and allegedly attempted to trade murder confessions in exchange for leniency. Throughout his prison term, he remained defiant, mysterious, and chillingly confident — making statements like, “I could solve up to ten homicides.”

The confirmed turning point in Zarinsky’s criminal life occurred on August 25, 1969, when 17-year-old Rose Calandriello vanished from Atlantic Highlands. Her body was never found, but by 1975, Zarinsky had been convicted of her murder — making him the first person in New Jersey convicted of murder without a body. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the conviction was later upheld on appeal.

Zarinsky initially denied involvement but eventually claimed he had accidentally killed Rose, first saying he buried her in northwest New Jersey, then changing his story and stating that he dumped her body in the Atlantic Ocean. The constant inconsistency in his accounts became a recurring theme.

Zarinsky’s name resurfaced in other cold cases. He was strongly linked to the 1968 murder of Jane Durrua (13) after DNA evidence led to his indictment in March 2008 — just months before his death. Durrua was found raped and murdered in a field in Middletown. Though Zarinsky never stood trial for this crime, the forensic connection left little doubt about his guilt.

Then, in February 2016, DNA evidence conclusively linked Zarinsky to the 1965 rape and murder of 18-year-old Mary Agnes Klinsky, whose beaten and naked body was discovered in Holmdel. This connection, announced nearly eight years after his death, finally confirmed long-held suspicions about Zarinsky’s role in a broader killing spree.

He was also the prime suspect in at least four other unsolved homicides, including those of:

• Linda Balabanow (17) – disappeared 1969
• Doreen Carlucci (14) and Joanne Delardo (15) – killed 1974
• Ann Logan (19) – murdered in Elizabeth, NJ

In 2001, Zarinsky was tried and acquitted for the 1958 Bernoskie police shooting, largely due to the discredited testimonies of his sister Judith Sapsa (who was being investigated for embezzling from his trust fund) and his cousin Theodore Schiffer, who admitted to being involved in the burglary but blamed Zarinsky for the shooting. Despite a civil court judgment of $9.5 million against him in favor of Officer Bernoskie’s widow, the verdict was overturned in 2007 due to state law.

On November 28, 2008, while awaiting trial for the Durrua murder, Zarinsky died of pulmonary fibrosis at South Woods State Prison. Though he was only convicted of one murder, posthumous DNA evidence and patterns strongly suggest he was responsible for multiple sexually motivated murders of young girls and teens between 1965 and 1974.