Jury hears gruesome details of Randolph teen’s death:
Yesterday the jury in the Jonathan Zarate trial heard fom the medical examiner about Jennifer Park’s death. I’m going to let the article do the talking…
Randolph slay victim Jennifer Parks was savagely beaten in the face and struck so hard in the stomach that she instantly lost consciousness and choked on her own vomit and blood, a medical examiner testified today at the trial of accused killer Jonathan Zarate.
The girl’s face was severely discolored, battered and swollen. Jurors also heard that Zarate stabbed the girl and that she still was alive, but unconscious, when he started to cut off her right thigh so he could squeeze most of her body into a foot locker. He abandoned the thigh-cutting because it was too difficult and instead cut her legs off at the knees, according to his confession.
The jury also heard from Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Sgt. John Haviland who was the man who took Zarate’s confession. Again the article can do a better job than I can.
The sergeant said he asked Zarate if he felt sad about the killing.
Zarate’s answer was: “It wasn’t supposed to be like that but it is now in the past and there’s nothing I can do about it,” Haviland testified.
The Jury also heard the confession tape. Again to the article.
Later that day, a police officer and a neighbor asked him if he had seen Jennifer because “apparently she was missing,” he said. He told both of them he did not know where she was. He said he went to a party in Florham Park, and upon returning, asked his brother James, then 14, to go for a drive with him.
James noticed a foul smell.
“I told him, don’t worry about it. Just put the window down,” Zarate told Haviland.
The jury was also shown the metal pole used to beat Jennifer and the blood stained carpet she was killed on.
What really kills me about this case is that through past behavior you can tell that Zarate really thinks he’s going to get away with this. If he does I will have lost all faith in our legal system.
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