She lived through the Great Depression, disappeared in 1978 and spent nearly five decades unidentified. Now, cold case investigators have identified her as a possible victim of the Jersey Shore’s notorious “Thrill Killer.”
For years, Sofia Margherita Marrone was known only as “Montauk Mary,” a name tied to the location where a U.S. Airman discovered her body during his lunch break at a park near Montauk’s eastern end in East Hampton, New York.
On March 22, 1978, the Airman found Marrone near the Camp Hero radar tower, a site that decades later would help inspire Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”
Suffolk County, New York, investigators have identified Sofia Margherita Marrone as the woman once known as “Montauk Mary.” Marrone was found shot to death in 1978, and authorities now believe she may have been a victim of the Jersey Shore “Thrill Killer.” (Suffolk County District Attorney)
On Thursday, Suffolk County investigators identified Marrone as the victim of a shooting that occurred about 250 miles from the place where she was last seen. Authorities said she had been shot and killed only hours before her body was discovered.
Marrone, who was from Pleasantville, New Jersey, was last seen leaving a hospital in Somers Point, New Jersey, on March 16, 1978. Six days later, she was killed at East Overlook Park in Montauk. An autopsy determined that she had suffered three gunshot wounds to her legs and another to her chest.
Her name remained unknown until investigators used new DNA techniques to establish her identity. Suffolk County officials said Marrone could have been killed by Richard Biegenwald, the criminal known as the Jersey Shore “Thrill Killer.”
Biegenwald died in prison in 2008 while serving life sentences for killing six people between 1958 and 1982, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said Thursday. He was also suspected in three additional murders.
Richard Biegenwald appears for his arraignment on a murder charge at the Monmouth County Courthouse on May 20, 1983. Biegenwald died in prison in 2008 after being convicted in six killings. He was suspected in other deaths and has recently emerged as the leading potential suspect in the 1978 shooting death of Sofia Marrone, formerly known as “Montauk Mary.” (Dave May-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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Tierney said Marrone was killed with the same uncommon .22-caliber short ammunition Biegenwald was using when New Jersey police arrested him in 1983. Biegenwald was known for approaching people he encountered while they were walking in communities along the Jersey Shore.
A witness at the time also reported seeing a bearded man inside a gold-colored car with New Jersey license plates near the Montauk park where Marrone’s body was found. Tierney said Biegenwald was known to wear a beard and owned several vehicles, including one that generally fit the witness’s description.
Even so, authorities have not declared the case closed.
Marrone is one of six people recently identified by a cold case task force. Retired NYPD cold case sergeant Joseph Giacalone said the effort could offer a blueprint for law enforcement agencies nationwide.
“The district attorney has established a national plan that other agencies should follow,” he told News Outlet Friday. “That means creating a cold case squad within the district attorney’s office, bringing in federal and state partners, investing in cases that can be solved and never giving up.”
Three of the six people identified are believed to have been homicide victims, according to Tierney’s office. Another is believed to have drowned accidentally, while the cause of death for the sixth remains under investigation.
Police search beneath Richard Biegenwald’s porch for human remains in Staten Island on April 22, 1983. The convicted serial killer died in 2008 and is a suspect in the 1978 murder of Sofia Marrone, who was formerly known as “Montauk Mary.” (Anthony Pescatore/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Marrone was identified Thursday along with five other people whose cases had remained unsolved. They were:
- Antoinette Rugg, previously known as the Heckscher Jane Doe — A dog walker found her skeletal remains buried in the sand at Heckscher State Park on April 2, 1978. Prosecutors said a belt had been pulled tightly around her neck. Rugg was 26 and had a 10-year-old son.
- Ramon Perez y Rivera, previously known as Raymond Doe — Rabbit hunters discovered his remains in Deer Park on Nov. 27, 1976. His body had been badly burned, and he had a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was 41.
- Kyong-Ok Kim, previously known as the Riverhead Jane Doe — A street sweeper found her body near Osborne Avenue in Riverhead on March 12, 1990. The cause of death remains under investigation. Kim was originally from South Korea, later immigrated to the United States and lived in Woodside, Queens. She was 32 and had a 12-year-old son.
- Omelios Steward, John Doe — The U.S. Coast Guard recovered an unidentified body from the water 9 miles south of Fire Island on Nov. 4, 1990. Steward, 28, is believed to have drowned.
- Andreas Kupke, John Doe — The 27-year-old German national came to the United States for a 10-day vacation in the fall of 1999 but never boarded his return flight. Police found his partially decomposed remains beside a high-tide marker in Montauk on Christmas Eve that year. His cause of death has not been determined.
“Every person deserves to be known by name, and every victim deserves answers and justice,” Tierney said in a statement. “Five decades have passed since the first of these individuals was found dead, but our commitment to identifying them and pursuing justice has never wavered.”
