Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2015 by Jesse P. Pollack & Mark Moran
All rights reserved
First published 2015
e-book edition 2015
ISBN 978.1.62585.157.4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015937834
print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.628.5
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
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PREFACE
The murder of Jeannette DePalma is one of the most bizarre and controversial homicide cases on record, and yet it is largely unknown outside the state of New Jersey. Many postulate that this was by design. Rumors of a nefarious coverup in this case originated only days after Jeannettes body was found on top of a cliff, surrounded by supposed occult objects. If one side is to be believed, the teenager was one of the first victims of ritual occult murder in suburban America. If the other is taken, this case could be one of the earliest examples of Satanic panic, decades before the infamous West Memphis Three case.
The story vanished from the newspapers only two weeks after Jeannettes body was discovered, but memories of the girls death stayed fresh in the gossip of New Jersey residents for years to come. It seemed likely that this was where the story of Jeannette DePalma would remaindying with those who knew her personally. However, in 1998, the offices of Weird NJ magazine received a letter regarding an alleged ritual human sacrifice in Springfields Houdaille Quarry. The letters author was unsure whether this sacrifice actually occurred or was purely myth, but the publication of his vague memory led to a rebirth of interest in this cold case.
A few short years after the letters appearance in Weird NJ, I started writing short pieces for the magazine. A decade would pass, however, before I began researching the case for this book. Leading up to this point, my co-author, Weird NJs co-founder Mark Moran, worked diligently to bring as many facts as possible about Jeannettes murder to light, conducting interviews with her friends and family and sifting through dozens of letters regarding the casenearly all of which were mailed anonymously. Eventually, Mark hit a dead end, and the trail again went cold.
I became familiar with Jeannette DePalma and the circumstances surrounding her murder in early 2012 while flipping through back issues of Weird NJ. In Issue #22, I found several pages devoted to the case, and I could not shake from my mind the mysterious death of this young woman. I began searching reel after reel of microfilm for articles about this supposed victim of murderous cult members. I then located the surviving investigators who had worked Jeannettes case. Many were willing to speak on the record with me; others were less than enthusiastic, to say the least. I also tracked down many of Jeannettes friends, along with members of the DePalma family, spending countless hours meeting with them and conducting interviews. It soon became apparent that, despite the many years that had passed since the teenagers death, a multitude of her friends and acquaintances were still terrified of whoever was responsible for the horrible act. A significant number of these people would speak to me only under the strict condition of anonymity. This required certain names to be changed within the text. These names are marked with asterisks.
Armed with a wealth of new information about the case, Mark and I decided to team up and write the definitive account of this incredibly strange cold case. A lot of the evidence that we have found is controversial, to say the least, and sometimes contradictory. We have done our absolute best to separate myth from fact wherever possible, all while objectively presenting the many sides of this captivating story. We can only hope that this book will lead to a better understanding of the senseless murder of a young woman and the bizarre events that led up to that dark day in August 1972. Even stranger events surrounding this crime continue to unfold today. The key to finally solving this cold case may lie within these pages. Only time will tell.
JESSE P. POLLACK
February 2015
As a writer for the magazine Weird NJ, I am always on the lookout for new, unusual stories to tell. Back around 2002, the publication began receiving vague and anonymous letters about a grisly murder that had taken place some thirty years prior. My curiosity was sparked, and I decided to piece together as many of the facts of the cold case as I could find. That task, as I soon would discover, would be a much more daunting challenge than I ever could have foreseen.
The all-but-forgotten unsolved case began in 1972, when the body of a teenage girl was discovered atop a cliff, high above an abandoned quarry in the township of Springfield, New Jersey. The corpse was found thanks to a dog that had brought home to its master a badly decomposed human forearm. The arm, along with the corpse, would later be identified as having belonged to Jeannette DePalma, a local teenager who had been missing for six weeks.
The details that first drew me to the sad story of Jeannette were the lingering rumors around Union County alleging that the disappearance and subsequent murder had ritualistic overtones. The remote hilltop location where the body was discovered was said to have been strewn with cult-related symbols, and the body of the young girl was rumored to have been placed on a makeshift altar in the woods.
The various versions of the Jeannette DePalma story that I heard blamed either a coven of witches or a local group of Satanists who had sacrificed her. The strangest thing that I encountered in my investigation of the mystery was that after more than thirty years, most people who remembered the crime were still too frightened to speak about it. Everyone I questioned about the murder seemed to recall the same scant and gruesome details, but nobody wanted to go on record or have his or her name published in my articleincluding members of the Springfield Police Department.
The general consensus of the people I interviewed in regard to Jeannettes murder seemed to agree on certain points: that the killing was in some way cult related, that the Springfield Police Department had covered up certain facts of the case and that Jeannettes killers were most likely still at large. They also shared the desire to see the killer or killers brought to justice so that Jeannette might finally rest in peace.
