'Montauk Mary' Victim Tied to Serial Killer Who Stalked Jersey Shore
Sofia Margherita Marrone, “Montauk Mary”
More than forty years after "Thrill Killer" Richard Biegenwald was arrested for serial murders in New Jersey--his victims including four teen-aged girls--a prominent district attorney in New York linked Biegenwald to the cold case shooting death of "Montauk Mary" on the east end of Long Island in 1978. "Mary" is now identified as Sofia Margherita Marrone, who was 73 when she was last seen leaving a hospital in Somers Point, New Jersey. The Jersey Shore town, which is very close to Atlantic City, is 244 miles from Montauk, another popular beach destination. Biegenwald had ties to New York, because his mother lived on Staten Island. In fact, two of Biegenwald's teen victims were buried in his mother's yard.
The late serial killer, Richard Biegenwald, in his later years (left). Richard Biegenwald during a court appearance in the 1980’s (right).
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney, who secured a guilty plea in the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation from defendant Rex Heuermann this year, announced that "Montauk Mary" had been identified through genetic genealogy, along with five other people discovered dead in the county decades ago. Tierney then explained why the "Mary" case had strong ties to Biegenwald, who died in a New Jersey prison in 2008.
Family members who learned the fate of loved ones stand with Suffolk DA Tierney.
Tierney noted Sofia Marrone was shot four times with a .22 caliber weapon. It was the type of gun Biegenwald favored, using very unique 'short round' bullets when he shot his victims. When New Jersey police raided Biegenwald's home in 1983, they found a .22 caliber gun and 'short round' bullets. Tierney said the four, 'short round' projectiles from Marrone's 1978 case on Long Island had been disposed of, so his cold case team couldn't make a direct comparison with the bullets from Biegenwald's home. Yet Tierney pointed out that a witness had seen "a man with a beard in a gold car with New Jersey plates," close to the hospital in Somers Point where Sofia Marrone was last seen. The description closely matched Biegenwald's appearance and the car he was driving in 1978.
Biegenwald fatally shot his first victim, a New Jersey prosecutor, during a robbery in 1958.
After serving 17 years in prison, police said he turned into a serial killer, murdering a friend and then multiple teen girls, many of them from south Jersey. "Montauk Mary" was an elderly woman, also from south Jersey, and she remained unidentified in Suffolk County for 48 years.
Suffolk County police and Raymond Tierney's investigators had employed genetic genealogy to identify two victims of the Gilgo Beach serial killer: Karen Vergata and Valerie Mack. D.A. Tierney said he decided during the Heuermann investigation that he would launch a Cold Case Task Force to review the files of 210 unidentified remains in Suffolk County, their cases dating back to the 1960's. There are currently 300 unsolved cases in the county.
In announcing that six people have newly been identified, Tierney said, "Every person deserves to be known by their name, and every victim deserves answers and justice."
At least three of the six people identified Thursday are believed to be homicide victims.
Ramon Perez Y Rivera was simply known as "Raymond Doe" for 50 years, because of the tattoo on his left upper arm. He was found by three people hunting for rabbits in Deer Park, Long Island on November 27, 1976. Rivera had been severely burned and there was a gunshot wound in his abdomen. At the time of his violent death, Rivera, 41, was living in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“Raymond Doe”, Ramon “Raymond” Perez Y Rivera arm tattoo
I was intrigued to learn the Cold Case Task Force had identified the victim previously known as Heckscher Park Jane Doe. Her name was Antoinette Rugg and she had a young son. Rugg was 26 when she was killed. Her skeleton was found buried in the sand in Heckscher State Park on Long Island's South Shore, in the shadow of the Robert Moses Causeway Bridge, on April 2, 1978. A belt was tied tightly around the victim's neck. The cause of death was deemed to be ligature strangulation.
Antoinette Rugg,"Heckscher Park Jane Doe"
I asked District Attorney Tierney if Rex Heuermann could be a person of interest in Rugg's case, because of the belt tied around her neck and her proximity to Robert Moses Causeway, which leads to the Gilgo Beach area. Heuermann would have been 15 years old in 1978; he reportedly told a court officer in June that he started having "murderous urges" in his teen years. D.A. Tierney said he did not want to speculate, but when I mentioned the ligature strangulation, he replied, "Duly noted."
Riverhead Jane Doe was identified as Kyong Ok Kim, a 32 year old woman who was born in South Korea in 1951, before emigrating to the United States. She gave birth to a son in Michigan but later became estranged from her family. She worked at a Manhattan grocery store and was living in Woodside at the time of her death. A street sweeper in Riverhead discovered her body near a wooded area on March 12, 1990. He said he initially thought she was a "mannequin." The D.A.'s team is not certain, at this time, how Kyong Ok Kim died.
Raymond Tierney's office also identified a man who was nameless since 1990. On November 4th that year, the U.S. Coast Guard discovered a deceased man floating in the Atlantic Ocean, about nine miles from Fire Island. Thanks to advancements in fingerprint analysis, the man has now been identified as Omelios Steward, who was 28 when he died. Steward's family in Brooklyn didn't know what had happened to him, until recently.
Finally, the Cold Case Squad also identified German tourist Andreas Kupke, who was last seen at Newark Airport in November 1999. His body was discovered near the water mark at Ditch Pines, Montauk on Christmas Eve 1999. His family in Germany had reported him missing to authorities in their country, when he failed to return from his trip.
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