N.J. teen charged with dismembering girl

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
c.2005 New York Times News Service
RANDOLPH, N.J. — It was early Saturday morning, and there was nothing going on in this affluent, woodsy community when Jonathan Zarate, 18, asked the girl next door to come over and watch TV.
But minutes later, the police said on Monday, the two started arguing and Zarate flew into a homicidal rage, beating the 16-year-old girl with a pole, stabbing her in the neck and stuffing a bandanna down her throat so she could not scream.
Then, the police said, while his parents were still sound asleep upstairs, Zarate sawed off the girl’s legs and stuffed her into a trunk. The girl’s family panicked Saturday morning when they awoke and could not find her. Friends fanned out across the forested Morris County neighborhood with few sidewalks and big lots, and even knocked on Zarate’s front door. He leaned on the doorframe, a neighbor said, and shrugged as if he knew nothing at all.
“If you hear any news, let us know,” is what Zarate said, according to Febe Sieb, a neighbor who said she talked to him that day.
Early the next morning, a few miles away, a police officer happened to be driving past three teenagers standing on a bridge about to heave something heavy into the Passaic River.
The officer stopped. He drew his gun. He discovered that the three teenagers — Zarate, his 14-year-old brother and a 16-year-old friend of the brother — were trying to dump a trunk that held a dismembered body. It was the girl next door, Jennifer Parks, an only child who had been described as shy and sweet, and a shameless fan of Harry Potter.
Arrest papers said Zarate admitted killing her after the argument in his basement. According to the papers, he recounted striking her in the face, beating her with a pole from a sliding glass door, wrapping a bandanna around his hand and reaching down her throat. He cut off her legs at the knees with a knife, the police said. Afterward, Zarate scrubbed his basement rug with bleach and asked his brother and the friend to help him get rid of the body.
Police were at a loss to say what set off Zarate, who has no adult criminal record. He and Parks were not boyfriend and girlfriend, and although he was described by some as a bully who mercilessly teased her, neighbors said the two had recently made up and played together in the Parks family’s pool.
One issue the police were considering was whether Zarate was upset about an earlier dispute between his brother and Parks. Neighbors said that the brother, whose name was withheld because he is a juvenile defendant, teased Parks for being fat and that she became so upset that her parents called the police.
Ralph Amirata, a Morris County prosecutor, said Zarate had not invited her over just to kill her.
“It does not appear to be a premeditated setup,” he said.
Amirata also said Zarate’s parents did not appear to be involved.
“We believe they were sleeping and didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
The news of the killing and its grisly details spread quickly through Randolph, a well-off suburb about 40 miles west of New York City where the median household income is around $110,000.
Kyle Kerlia, 15, who lives next door to Zarate on the other side, said he could not stop thinking of “how mean the killing is.”
Police said it was 2 a.m. on Saturday when Zarate, who lives in a split-level house with peeling paint on the windows, asked Parks to come over to watch some late-night TV.
Her parents called the police around 11:45 a.m. to report her missing. Neighbors said her father was an electrician and her mother worked at Shop-Rite.
While the Parkses were searching feverishly for their daughter, neighbors said, the Zarate family was throwing a big party next door, where people were singing “Happy Birthday” in Spanish.
All that day, the police said, Parks’ body remained in the 4-foot-long trunk, which was sitting in the back of the Zarate family’s Jeep Cherokee. Public records indicate that Zarate’s father owns a small trucking company and runs it out of his house.
About 3 a.m. on Sunday, Sgt. Glenn Amodeo of the Secaucus Police Department spotted the three teenagers on the bridge over the Passaic River near the busy Route 3 highway in Rutherford.
All three were arrested. Zarate was charged with murder, four weapons charges, hindering apprehension and using a juvenile to commit a crime. The two juveniles were charged with evidence tampering and unlawful disposal of human remains.
All three remain in jail, and on Monday, Zarate appeared in a Morristown courtroom for his arraignment.
His eyes darted back and forth as a crush of photojournalists snapped his photo. He answered the judge’s few questions solemnly and then shuffled back out of the hushed courtroom, the only sound the clanking of his chains.
“He’s scared,” said his lawyer, Anthony Fusco Jr., a prominent defense attorney in Passaic who said he had been hired by the Zarate family.
Back in the neighborhood, residents gathered on their lawns in quiet clumps, watching police scour the woods for the murder weapon, which has yet to be found.
The Parks house was deserted, and there was yellow police tape across the yard. An untouched newspaper lay in the grass. Its headline read, “Randolph Girl, 16, Slain.”
NYT-08-02-05 0045EDT

Comments

[laurie parks]

it has been almost 2 years since my precious girl has been gone. i miss her deeply. i just hope that justice will be served in the end