Massachusetts girl Betty Lou Zukowski left her home on the evening of May 26, 1966, and was found beaten to death several days later Composite sketches drawn at the time of the crime (left) show an unknown suspect who resembles teenage Donald Raymond Mars’ school yearbook photo
MASSACHUSETTS lawmen are convinced a ten-year-old schoolgirl’s killer is finally facing justice after 56 years after obtaining a murder indictment against sex fiend Donald Raymond Mars, who was fingered by cold case investigators.
Now held without bond, Mars, 73, was about 17 when Betty Lou Zukowski disappeared in May 1966 and bears an uncanny resemblance to composite sketches of a suspect drawn with the help of eyewitnesses to events surrounding her final hours. Mars, who is a registered sex offender, is charged with beating Betty Lou to a pulp and throwing the child into a river while she was still alive.
Betty Lou vanished after receiving a phone call from a girlfriend. She left her family’s home in Chicopee at about 6 p.m. on May 26 and was not seen again until a group of boys fishing in the Westfield River found the girl’s body four days later. She’d been beaten to death — but cops were baffled by the brutal crime.
“Sadly, Betty Lou’s parents are deceased and will not see Donald Mars answer for what we allege he did to their daughter,” says Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni.
Recently, the DA’s Unresolved Case Unit reopened the investigation and apparently found evidence from a 1997 case linking Mars to the murder.
Although authorities are keeping tight-lipped about details, the state sex registry shows Mars was convicted of raping a child in 1995. The fiend has a court date scheduled in May. Says Gulluni, “While this investigation will not bring Betty Lou back to her family or grant her the opportunity to grow into a healthy adult that she and every child deserves, it is for them and for Betty Lou that we embark upon this journey of seeking justice.”
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