Share this @internewscast.com
The remains of Jodie Jakubaszek, a 25-year-old working in finance, were found under the Belt Parkway near Coney Island in Brooklyn on June 4, 1997, after she was reported missing on the same day.
Jakubaszek was discovered face down without shoes. “Her feet weren’t dirty, so it didn’t seem like she walked there,” stated Frank Ciccone, who was then a detective with the New York City Police Department’s 60th Precinct in Brooklyn.
“Someone placed her body there,” Ciccone said in the “The Coney Island Cover Up” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
A cast of tire tracks near the body was taken as evidence. When the medical examiner arrived and turned Jakubaszek’s body over, investigators realized she was pregnant.
“The medical examiner examined the body, looking for bullet wounds, stab wounds, and signs of asphyxiation,” said William Menendez, who was a detective with the NYPD’s Crime Scene Unit at the time. “But there was nothing obvious.”
Who was Jodie Jakubaszek?
Detectives learned that Jakubaszek grew up in Rochester, New York, and moved to New York City to attend Pace University. She was known for her tenacity and knack for making everyone feel special.
“If she wanted to make something happen, she would make that happen,” said her younger sister Danielle Verosky. That drive led Jakubaszek to a job at an equity firm after graduation.
Now expecting a daughter whom she planned to name Jade, Jakubaszek was about to return to Rochester. “My mom was over the moon,” said Verosky. “And now Jodie was gone.”
Police interview Jodie Jakubaszek’s on-off boyfriend
Investigators’ initial focus was Marvin Fulford, Jakubaszek’s on-off boyfriend who was the father of her unborn baby. He was also her landlord and lived in the same building in Brooklyn. Fulford had called to file the missing-persons report.
“We learned Jodie had helped Marvin get his life together, as far as getting his X-ray technician license,” Ciccone said. “She put him on the right path of being able to buy the building that he did.”
Fulford was at home with his new girlfriend, Deborah Pretlow, when police informed him that Jakubaszek was dead. The interview continued at the police precinct.
Fulford told police that he and Jakubaszek were not together but were on good terms. He shared his whereabouts during the time that Jodie disappeared. “He’d worked and then he went to a strip club in the Bronx with friends,” said Patrick Boyle, who was a detective at the 60th Precinct in Brooklyn at the time.
In the room next door, Ciccone interviewed Pretlow. “You would think somebody whose boyfriend is the baby’s daddy to his ex-girlfriend upstairs would be somewhat annoyed,” Ciccone said. “She really didn’t show too much of that. I have no red flags… at this point.”
Jodie Jakubaszek’s autopsy and bank records
Jakubaszek’s autopsy didn’t determine a cause of death. The case was labeled CUPPI — Circumstances Undetermined Pending Police Investigation. Results from a toxicology analysis were still in the works.
The medical examiner did determine that Jakubaszek was killed on the evening of June 3. Investigators took a close look at Fulford’s alibi, and it checked out.
Police turned to Jakubaszek’s bank history. Records showed six failed attempts to use her bank card at an ATM in Brooklyn. Grainy security video showed two women trying to withdraw cash.
As investigators sought to identify the women, Jakubaszek’s family, friends and colleagues laid her to rest. “She was gone,” said best friend Cynthia Korpal. “She was never going to turn 26 and was never going to have her baby.”
Coworker Audrey Miles was among the grieving. “That was tough, someone so close and so young, it was very, very hard.”
Six days into the case, the toxicology report showed that Jakubaszek had a high concentration of a compound found in cleaning fluid in her bloodstream. “It’s not a normal substance found in human beings,” said Adam S. Charnoff, a former assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Jakubaszek’s credit history showed that an individual ordered $130 worth of sex toys using her card. The person who ordered them was Leandra Adams, who had no criminal history and lived in the victim’s Brooklyn neighborhood.
Jodie Jakubaszek’s abduction and murder
On June 11, investigators interviewed Adams. She confirmed that she was one of the women caught in surveillance video trying to withdraw cash using Jakubaszek’s card. She claimed that her friend Tamika Camacho had found a card by the token booth in the Fulton St. train station. She insisted she wasn’t involved in Jakubaszek’s death.
When Camacho was brought in for questioning, Adams changed her story. “Andrea Adams started spilling the beans,” Charnoff said. “And she gave up the names of the other people involved.”
Adams gave authorities Camacho’s name again and Camacho’s friend Ria Clarke, and a third name that shocked investigators — Deborah Pretlow.
“She’s the ringleader,” Charnoff said of Pretlow. “She’s the one who brought it all together.”
Camacho told police that on the evening of June 3, she was with Pretlow, Adams and Clarke, “And we went to the train station because Debbie wanted to speak to Jodie about Jodie getting in the middle of her relationship with Marvin.”
Adams added of Pretlow, “She said that she wanted me and [Camacho] to come with her to talk to Jodie, because Jodie wouldn’t talk to her by herself.”
Ciccone said that the women got into Pretlow’s car and headed to Fulton St., where Jodie got off the train to go home.
Boyle explained on New York Homicide that Pretlow knew that Jakubaszek got off the train each day at the same time.
Adams told police that Pretlow pointed Jakubaszek out to the others, and together, they confronted Jakubaszek. “Debbie goes, ‘Look, just get in the car,'” Adams said of how Jakubaszek ended up in Pretlow’s vehicle.
Camacho told police, “We drove, she [Pretlow] sat in the back with Jodie and she started talking to her.”
“Jodie was driven all over Brooklyn while Deborah Pretlow was haranguing her, ‘Leave my boyfriend alone,'” Charnoff said.
Adams said that Jakubaszek told Pretlow, “Look, Debbie, I’m leaving, I’m going to Rochester with my family. You don’t have to worry about it.”
The group drove to Coney Island and Pretlow told the others to “get out and go walk on the boardwalk,” Adams told police, adding, “She’s telling me to go, I’m like, ‘No, I want to see what you’re doing.'”
As seen in a recorded police interview, Adams added of what Pretlow did to Jakubaszek, “She started taping up her face area.”
The shocking story continued.
What happened to Jodie Jakubaszek?
“Then Pretlow takes a syringe and injects her [Jakubaszek] with some sort of cleaning solution,” Boyle said. “How depraved can you get?”
Adams told police that Pretlow covered Jakubaszek’s face with several plastic bags and wound them tight. “It appears that Miss Pretlow was intent on killing Jodie,” said Boyle, adding that he was uncertain if the other women in the car knew that at the time.
Pretlow and Clarke arrived at the precinct. “Deborah Pretlow admitted to being there, admitted to Jodie being murdered, but kept pointing fingers at Leandra and Tamika Camacho as the primary assailants,” said Charnoff. “More like a robbery gone bad.”
Detectives didn’t buy that version. “Who has the motive to make this woman disappear? Pretlow,” said Boyle. “That to me seems more plausible.”
None of the women mentioned Clarke as being involved in any way in the abduction and murder. She wasn’t charged with any crime.
Leandra Adams, Tamika Camacho and Deborah Pretlow charged with murder
Adams, Camacho and Pretlow were charged with kidnapping, robbery and second-degree murder. As the district attorney’s office prepared for trial, Pretlow dropped a bombshell. She disavowed all of her prior statements. She now claimed she wasn’t even in the car on the day of the murder.
Adams and Camacho indicated they would plead guilty to manslaughter and would testify against Pretlow. Because they’d benefit from the deal with a reduced sentence, prosecutors went to Clarke to see if she’d testify. Clarke agreed.
To bolster the case, investigators confirmed that the tire tracks left near Jakubaszek’s body matched the tread of the tires on Pretlow’s car. That put the vehicle at the crime scene. In addition, fibers from Jakubaszek’s clothes were found in the car.
Deborah Pretlow convicted of manslaughter and kidnapping
At Pretlow’s trial, Clarke took the stand. “Her testimony provided a lot of gruesome, specific detail,” Charnoff said. “According to Ria, Jodie kept pleading with everyone in the car, ‘Please don’t harm me or my baby.’”
On May 7, 1999, Pretlow was convicted of kidnapping and manslaughter in the first degree — and not murder in the second degree, a decision that shocked investigators. Pretlow was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Miles, Jakubaszek’s co-worker, still grapples with so many lives ruined because of “jealousy over a man,” she said. “All of it is just senseless.”
To learn more about the case, watch “The Coney Island Cover Up” episode of New York Homicide. The show airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
