The Serial Killer's Apprentice Page 3

  Joe’s cell phone records show no evidence of this.

  When asked why Joe would go downtown, Trimmer said, “What’s the big deal? I go downtown all the time.”

  When asked if managers and other employees would confirm that he was, in fact, working when Joe was missing, Trimmer hedges. “I’m not 100 percent sure if I was working that day. But I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.”

  Brunswick police currently have a warrant out for Trimmer’s arrest for failing to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge of underage possession of alcohol.

  * * *

  Kate Kupchik sits at a table inside Caribou Coffee in Akron, sipping her drink and expounding on what may have happened to her brother nearly a year ago. She looks more like her mother than her other siblings, but has darker hair. There’s a little bit of Joe in her, too, in the contours of her cheeks. And she has her father’s analytical mind; she currently works as an accountant.

  “I don’t think anybody intended to kill Joe,” she says. “I see it like this: they held a knife to him as a scare tactic and someone moved. Someone panicked. He was knocked unconscious. He was stored somewhere. They left and came back and then threw him off. Then said, ‘Let’s change his schedule to five so that we’re gone by then and we’ll be off the clock and off the hook.’ Maybe they said, ‘Here’s $1,000 to change the schedule, just shut up about it.’ Unfortunately, there’s people out there that would take the money. I think everyone involved is young, which is a good thing. Maybe they had a girlfriend or boyfriend then who they told. Maybe now, they’re broken up. And now, this ex will come forward and say, ‘I know what happened.’ ”

  On February 11, 2006, as the day faded into evening and a nearly full moon hung in the winter sky, John Kupchik attended a party at a friend’s house near the University of Dayton. But he didn’t feel right. In fact, he felt distraught for no apparent reason. He wondered if he was getting sick. He left early and went back to his dorm to lie down.

  He had no idea that at that moment his twin brother was dying.

  Their connection persists, through dreams. Maybe one day Joe can rest in peace and John can rest through the night.

  * * *

  Anyone with information related to Joe’s case can give anonymous tips to Crimestoppers at 216-252-7463. You can also contact the family at HelpJoeK@sbcglobal.net.

  Joseph Kupchik had recently lost money gambling, but friends and family owed him a lot more. And he showed no signs of depression. (George Kupchik)

  Joseph and his brother Johnathan are twins whose bond cannot be severed, even after death. (George Kupchik)

  The crime scene. It’s nine stories to the ground from the top level of the parking garage where detectives found Kupchik’s car. (Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office)

  Joseph’s bloody shirt was cut off of him at the hospital. It was too late to save him. Joseph couldn’t tell doctors what had happened. (Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office)

  Chapter 2

  Time is Death Itself

  The Unsolved Murder of Beverly Jarosz

  She knew that Death wanted her and in the months before her violent murder, 16-year-old Beverly Jarosz did everything she could to prepare for it.

  She ruminated on the subject of death, the idea of it, in poems she kept in a small black book. “Someone will want to publish these when I’m dead,” she told her little sister, Carol.

  She studied ways of seeing her own future before it came to pass, reading books on parapsychology and palm reading.

  She locked the doors when she got home from school every day. She made sure the curtains were snuggly shut before dark. And she bought an ornate letter opener—more of a knife, really—which she kept on the desk in her bedroom by the door that led downstairs, “just in case.”

  Her mother felt it, too. A dark foreboding. Danger, headed their way.

  This sense that Beverly had fallen within the Reaper’s regard began in the summer of 1964, around the time she received an anonymous present tucked into the back door of her family’s house in Garfield Heights. It was a gift-wrapped box from Higbee’s, tied up in a blue ribbon. Someone had written “To Bev” on the box. Inside was a silver bracelet and ring. She had no clue who had sent it. There were a lot of young men in the neighborhood who wanted to date her, after all. It could have been any one of them. But the anonymity of it frightened her.

  By the end of ’64, though, things were looking up. Beverly—Bev, as her friends called her—had started dating a strait-laced college boy, a young Republican named Roger McNamara. He was a far cry from her first love—the town bad boy, Dan Schulte. Roger was reserved, a proper Catholic who attended Latin mass and spoke out against the liberal alterations of Vatican II. Dan’s idea of a date had been making out behind the local car wash. Bev’s sister, who had never cared for Dan, liked Roger. He treated her well. Bev particularly enjoyed attending parties at Roger’s fraternity and meeting his older, educated friends.

  But this new happiness was short lived.

  Death finally caught up with Bev on December 28, 1964.

  * * *

  The Jarosz (pronounced Jar-rose) family home was a modest two-story structure that sat on Thornton Avenue, near Turney, in suburban Garfield Heights. It was a cookie-cutter neighborhood of similar homes packed tightly together in neat little rows, separated by thin driveways and well-kept lawns. The residents were blue collar types, hard-working Clevelanders who pulled late shifts at the local factories and 9-to-5ers who arrived home at the end of the evening in swarms of American-made metal. Most women didn’t work outside the home, and people really knew their neighbors and invited them to dinner. During the 1964 Christmas holiday, however, several men on Thornton were home more than usual because the union at White Motor Company was striking.

  Bev’s father, Ted, was the co-owner of a small lighting and manufacturing firm but had a real knack for woodworking. In his spare time, he built toys and chests. Over the course of a few years, he slowly renovated the entire second floor of his house, converting it into a shared bedroom for his two daughters. He constructed everything in duplicate so that neither felt slighted. Each had a wooden nook beside her bed to store little girl treasures. And each had a bookcase—on Bev’s was the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. They had their own dressers and mirrors. Between their beds was a shared nightstand.

  Bev’s mom, Eleanor, worked in a local office. Bev’s sister, Carol, was a seventh grader at St. Therese and had started taking horseback riding lessons. Usually, when Bev was asked out on a date, she asked Carol what she thought of the boy before she accepted. They were a close family, a family with no secrets.

  Bev was a striking young woman with a nicely curvy figure and eyes the color of the lake on an overcast day. She preferred jazz to the Beatles, and she often visited the Cleveland Museum of Art, spending hours by herself, silently contemplating master works. She attended Marymount High, a private Catholic school, where she was a member of the Future Teachers club. She spoke Latin. She volunteered time at the local hospital. In the summers, she liked to sunbathe in the backyard and read books. By all accounts, she was exceedingly popular, intelligent, and well-liked.

  Which made it all the more shocking that her murder was so hateful, so violent.

  Carol later gave detectives a detailed account of her sister’s last day.

  “Monday, December 28, Bev and I got up about eight-thirty, nine o’clock. We had breakfast and then washed dishes from the night before.”

  The dishes were left over from a small gathering in the Jarosz home the previous evening. Their neighbors on both sides—the Webers and the Zumgulises—had come over for snacks and drinks. It was a Christmastime tradition. Bev had come in and out during the party, leaving briefly at the end of the night for a short car ride with her boyfriend.

  After the dishes were done, the girls got dressed and left the house around 10:15 a.m. Bev wore slacks and a white blouse with a black cardigan. Carol walked
with Bev first to Woolworth’s to pick up a hairnet for their grandmother, then to Hough Bakery for some bread. At about 10:45, they arrived at Grandma Vanek’s and ate lunch: ham sandwiches and coffee. Bev told Carol she was going to return home and meet up with a friend named Barb Klonowski at 12:30. Bev and Barb were going to visit another friend named Margie Gorney for the afternoon. Around 12:15, a young man named James Mondzelewski, who lived next door to Bev’s grandmother, drove her home while Carol stayed with Grandma Vanek.

  At 1 p.m., Bev called her mom at work. The call was brief. Bev said she had to go because Barb was supposed to be there any minute and she still needed to change.

  Barb’s mother dropped her off at the Jarosz house at 1:20 and left before Barb reached the side door. Barb saw that the storm door was closed but the inner door was open to the kitchen, which was strange, because Bev always kept both doors closed and locked. Inside the family room, the radio was blaring classical music from WCLV. Barb rang the doorbell three times but Bev didn’t answer the door. She thought it was possible Bev couldn’t hear the bell over the radio so she tried to open the glass storm door, but it seemed to be locked. Barb went around front.

  There she rang the front doorbell and this time she distinctly heard a sound from upstairs, like a dresser drawer being opened loudly. She figured Bev was getting dressed so she pulled a magazine from the mailbox beside the door and sat on the steps, reading for a few minutes. When Bev didn’t come to the door after several more minutes, Barb wondered if Bev was mad at her for being late. So Barb gave up and started walking home again. Before she got too far, though, a young man named Gary Grayson offered her a ride in his ’58 Corvair.

  Back home, Barb tried to reach Bev on the phone, but no one answered. At around 3:45, Margie called Barb’s house to see what was taking so long. When Barb told her that Bev had stood her up, Margie called Bev’s grandmother to see if she was over there. When Grandma Vanek got no answer at the Jarosz home either, she called Bev’s father at work.

  Sensing something was wrong, Ted rushed home. He pulled into the driveway at 4:10 p.m.. There, he found the side storm door unlocked. The inner door was still open. The radio was still playing loudly inside. Upstairs, he discovered the lifeless body of his daughter lying face-down in a pool of blood on the floor beside her bed.

  It was a horrific scene. Bev’s blouse and bra were pulled up over her breasts. Her slacks and underwear had been yanked down in one single, forceful motion. Her backside was riddled with deep gashes—she had been stabbed over 40 times. Her left hand was tucked under her body and her right hand was at her neck, where she had received another deep stab wound. Above the bed, where the ceiling slanted low from the pitch of the roof, was a large hole in the plaster, possibly created as she kicked at her attacker during the struggle.

  An autopsy determined that it wasn’t the stab wounds that killed her, but rather the length of rope wrapped around her neck. She had been strangled to death by a piece of clothesline tied with a square knot. Her murderer had become so violent that he accidentally cut part of the rope as he stabbed her and a piece of it was still wrapped in her fingers.

  During the initial investigation into the murder of Beverly Jarosz, every man in Garfield Heights was a potential suspect. It was tough work for investigators. As police canvassed the neighborhood, they found several young men who had taken Bev on dates and even more who had been rejected.

  They questioned 21-year-old Bruce Bilek, a college student who lived directly behind Bev’s house, after detectives discovered a note Bev had written to Margie: “Bruce came over to see what I looked like when I’m not dressed. I have my blue robe on and my hair is still in curlers.” But Bilek denied ever really talking to Bev and he had a solid alibi—at the time of the murder he was home with his family, working on his car. And Margie told detectives that it wouldn’t be unusual for Bev to make up the incident. Bev sometimes wrote about daring situations, Margie said, “because nothing ever happened to her.”

  Police also looked at Barb’s cousin, Stanley Klonowski, who had once dated Bev until she broke it off. “I feel sorry for Stanley because he’s so misunderstood, troubled, and disturbed,” Bev had written. But that didn’t pan out, either. They questioned Larry Young, whose mother had bad-mouthed Bev after the girl dumped her son. They looked closely at every male who had been seen at the house: the grocery-bagger at the local A&P, the boy in her typing class who gave her rides home, and countless other would-be suitors.

  They interviewed 19-year-old John Paliyan, who lived two doors down from the Jarosz’s. He was home alone the day of the murder and admitted eyeing Bev whenever she sunbathed in the backyard.

  And, of course, they spoke to James Mondzelewski, who had driven Bev home. He said the whole trip had lasted 15 minutes, after which he returned home, changed his clothes, and had a bite to eat. Later, he had driven Mrs. Vanek to the Jarosz home to be with the family after Bev’s body was discovered. There was nothing in his character for police to question and he was quickly ruled out.

  Slowly, the investigation narrowed to those closest to Bev.

  After talking to family members, detectives took a look at Bev’s former steady, Dan Schulte. He had dropped out of high school to join the Air Corps but was back in town for Christmas. And, although he was dating a new girl, it was well known that he still pined for Bev, to the chagrin of Bev’s friends, who thought he was nothing but a bad influence. “She would never think of doing the things with Roger that she did with Dan,” Margie told police. He had shown up at Bev’s viewing with a girl at his side but had returned alone, later, and sat quietly by himself.

  While on leave, Schulte had picked up some part-time work and was able to produce a timecard that showed he was on the clock when Bev was murdered. But the woman who lived next door to Schulte’s home told police she had seen him come home that day and run inside in a hurry. She had watched him in the reflection of her garage window. So Schulte was given a lie-detector test, which he passed.

  Roger McNamara’s alibi was weak. He told investigators he had been home sick. He, too, was given a lie detector test, which he passed. But the next day, Detective William Horrigan told the Cleveland Press, “There are some elements to his present story that bother some of us.”

  While Horrigan questioned a growing list of suspects, other detectives gathered evidence from the crime scene. They lifted fingerprints from Bev’s bedroom. Several were found that could not be matched to family or close friends. They also found bits of Bev’s hair in a bush behind the house, indicating that the murderer had escaped via the back door. The one thing no one could find was the brass letter opener Bev kept in her room.

  During the course of the autopsy, the coroner discovered that Bev had not been raped. In fact, she had never even had sex. Was it possible that her friend Barb had interrupted the attack when she rang the doorbell? Or was the scene staged to look like a sexual assault?

  There was one other odd clue. Bev had apparently received a phone call when she was home alone the day of her murder. She had written a message for her father and placed it next to the phone. It read: “Stephen Stackowicz called. Will call back later.” But her father didn’t know anyone by that name. And Stackowicz never did call back. Detectives theorized it may have been the killer, calling to make sure Bev was home alone.

  As the leads grew cold, police consulted a specialist who provided them a detailed profile of the killer’s mind. “The killer may have been attracted to the girl by some feature that reminded him of his mother’s face,” the report said. “He has a fear of being rejected. The killer would justify the act to himself by believing the girl was making him feel sick and this was the only way to cure himself.”

  Reporters interviewed a middle-aged neighbor named James Krawczyk, who claimed to have seen the killer run away from the Jarosz house. He was home because of the White Motor strike, and his wife confirmed to journalists that he often stood by the window, looking out toward Bev’s house on Tho
rnton Avenue. “Sometimes, he even gets up at night to look out the window,” she said. “I guess he likes the view.” But Krawczyk later admitted to police he had made up the story to get his name in the paper

  On January 11, as the local press demanded the killer be brought to justice, a 17-year-old boy from the neighborhood committed suicide. People quickly assumed he was responsible and had taken his life because he was overwhelmed with guilt. But police found the boy had been working at the time of the murder and several co-workers backed up the timecard.

  Eventually, the tips generated by the media coverage slowed to a trickle. Garfield Heights detectives continued to follow every lead until it dead-ended. They spent years on the case. It became personal to the homegrown investigators who devoted their time to finding Bev’s killer. But there was never enough evidence to charge anyone with the crime, though detective Horrigan believed he knew who did it. “I had who I was convinced was the killer the second day after the murder,” he told a Plain Dealer reporter in 1989. “He passed several interrogations. I hope one day he’ll blow his top and talk.”

  That hasn’t happened yet.

  Garfield Heights has not changed significantly in 43 years. It’s still a blue-collar town, though most of the factories that once employed its residents have either closed or moved to warmer climes. Serious crimes have risen steadily over the years as the city moved closer and closer to the suburb, but south of Miles Road, it’s still safe enough to walk to the store or bike to a friend’s house. Thornton Avenue still looks the same. The houses and lawns are still well-maintained, though they look smaller, somehow. And inside the Raymond Stackowicz Justice Center, Garfield Heights detectives are working the Beverly Jarosz case again.