Christian Barth - The Garden State Parkway Murders: A Cold Case Mystery

THE

GARDEN STATE PARKWAY

MURDERS

A Cold Case Mystery

CHRISTIAN BARTH

WildBluePress.com

THE GARDEN STATE PARKWAY MURDERS published by:

WILDBLUE PRESS

P.O. Box 102440

Denver, Colorado 80250

Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.

Copyright 2020 by Christian Barth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.

ISBN 978-1-948239-76-9 Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-948239-77-6 eBook

Cover design 2019 WildBlue Press. All rights reserved.

Interior Formatting by Elijah Toten

www.totencreative.com

1967 Map of Atlantic County, New Jersey

courtesy Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries

AUTHORS NOTE

The Garden State Parkway Murders is a work of nonfiction. Nevertheless, in certain instances throughout the book, names have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

INTRODUCTION

This is the true story of the unsolved murders of Elizabeth Perry and Susan Davis, college friends who were brutally knifed to death during the early morning hours of May 30, 1969, in the woods between mileposts 31.8 and 31.9 of the Garden State Parkway near Ocean City, New Jersey.

A culmination of more than nine years of research, this book is compiled from multiple sources, including interviews with retired New Jersey State Police detectives, law enforcement officials from other jurisdictions, federal agents, possible witnesses, victim family members, as well as information gathered from FBI case files, letters, journals, libraries, newspaper articles, and university archives.

Throughout this time period I interviewed, or at least attempted to interview, every person whom I thought might lend valuable insight toward solving this cold case. Although my first public records request to view the Perry-Davis investigative file was submitted to the New Jersey State Police in 2000, I didnt begin researching the case in earnest until immediately following the completion of my first book, The Origins of Infamy , a fictionalization of the 1969 Garden State Parkway murders published in 2009.

My interest in this story was borne from a distant childhood memory. One dusk, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old and we were driving along the northbound lanes of the parkway somewhere near Ocean City, en route home from a vacation at the Jersey Shore, I overheard my mother say to my father, They never found out who killed those girls, did they? My memory of that passing conversation remained dormant until 1993, when Id read a fascinating Philadelphia Inquirer article by columnist Larry Lewis. Ted Bundy was attending Temple University, the story read. Hed confessed to a prison psychologist that hed slain Davis and Perry, claiming they were his first two killings. The memory resurfaced once more, seven years later, when I had decided to write a short story about the parkway murders before embarking upon Origins . Yet even with that books completion the case still gnawed at me. I needed to know more.

Over the years my investigation took some ominous turns as the project meandered toward completion. After the weeks following the publication of Origins , a victims younger sibling sent along a Facebook friend request, followed by a heartfelt accusation that Id disrupted what closure shed attained upon concluding that Ted Bundy had murdered her sister. About a year later, in a lengthy, typewritten response to a letter Id sent to him at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, convicted serial killer Richard Cottingham, better known as the Torso Killer because of his affinity for dismembering Times Square prostitutes, offered to create a psychological profile of Susan and Elizabeths killer, but only in exchange for my delivery of a $250 food package to him. The steep price, he insisted, was necessary to ensure that I wasnt a police officer posing as an attorney. A cop, he surmised, would be too cheap to spend $250. He further insisted that I accept one dollar from him to seal the bargain, so that our conversation would remain bound by attorney-client privilege. On another occasion a Minnesota ministers wife sternly reprimanded me when she learned I had attempted to speak with her husband, whod delivered the eulogy at Elizabeth Perrys funeral service. I withstood her blistering torrent, for in the midst of her scornful lecture she repeatedly pledged to have her husband return my call. He never did. On another occasion a Vietnam War veteran, whose late brother was friends with a potential suspect when they both were teenagers, called me to utter some threatening remarks less than an hour after our phone interview, suggesting he knew where I lived, and having forgotten that wed just spoken. His sister profusely apologized for his behavior, saying he continued to suffer from PTSD.

Yet with each setback, every call not returned, formal records request denied or scathing rebuke, my resolve to solve this case only strengthened. Amidst the many obstacles thwarting my pursuit of learning what killer had slain these two girls on the cusp of womanhood, I met a number of courageous men and women who offered spiritual guidance and moral support along my journey, encouraging me to continue forward with my seemingly futile and time-consuming quest.

Obsess over an unsolved case long enough and you begin to notice it affects you in a surreal manner. Strange, though nevertheless true, on each occasion when self-doubt would cloud my inspiration, when futility interfered with my fervent hope that my work would one day yield results despite such daunting odds, upon the advent of each Memorial Day weekend I would invariably cross paths with at least one light-blue, 1966 Chevrolet convertible, reminding me that all my efforts hadnt been for naught. Id see this make and model in various permutations, some slowing past me with rusted panels and missing hubcaps, others gleamingly restored to their original showroom luster or slunk low to the ground, parked for sale at a gas station parking lot. I interpreted these signs as totems prodding me forward, suggesting deeper spiritual forces were at play. After all, except for family members, who really speaks for the victims? And were these victims speaking to me?