In the blink of an eye, on December 28, 1964, 12-year-old Carol Jarosz Bartos’ life changed forever.
That’s the day her 16-year-old sister, Beverly Jarosz, was murdered.
Sixty years later, Carol still has no answers as to what happened to her sister and who is responsible for her murder.
It started off as an ordinary day for the two sisters. They walked to their grandmother’s house for a visit.
“We left our house together, and we walked — like maybe it’s probably a half an hour to my grandma’s house — and we had lunch there,” Carol told Dateline. “And my sister washed my grandma’s hair and put it up in little curlers, and she had plans for the afternoon, and so I stayed with my grandma.”
Beverly headed back to their house, where she was supposed to meet two friends. Both of their parents were at work, so Beverly would have been home alone waiting for her friends.
According to Carol, when the first friend arrived, she was unable to enter the home. She noticed one door that was typically closed was open, while another door that was typically left open, was closed. The friend also heard loud music blaring from upstairs, which would have been unusual for Beverly.
“She thought that Beverly might have been angry with her because she was a little bit running late,” Carol said. “And so she went home.”
Carol added that the first friend then told the second friend what had happened. The second friend called Beverly and Carol’s grandmother. Carol says their grandmother knew something was wrong immediately. “She called my dad, and he came home from work around -- between 4:00 and 4:30 after he got that phone call from my grandma,” Carol said.
That is when their father discovered that Beverly hadn’t been home alone.
“He came home and, of course, found her dead -- strangled, stabbed,” Carol said.
According to the Ohio Attorney General’s website, “On 12/28/1964, 16yr old Beverly Jarosz was strangled and stabbed to death in her bedroom of her Garfield Heights home.”
Detective Mark Menary of the Garfield Heights Police Department confirmed this information and told Dateline that Beverly had been murdered “at roughly 1:30pm.”
He said the cause of death was strangulation. “Many pieces of evidence were recovered. Most importantly, the rope used to kill Beverly,” he noted.
Carol remembers overhearing the gut-wrenching phone call between her father and her grandmother.
“He called my grandmother and he was yelling, ‘Murder, murder, murder.’ And so then I knew,” Carol told Dateline. “And then my grandma had me go to her next-door neighbor’s house. And she went over to my dad’s house, too.”
The traumatic event, happening when she was just 12 years old, took Carol years to process. “I feel like I have so few recollections from the time that happened to me, until — even through high school,” she recalled, describing that period as a blur. “I don’t know how I got through those six years. And then when I went away to college, I feel like my life came back to me or something.”
Carol says Beverly’s murder deeply affected her personality for a long time. “I was always, like, a real outgoing person. I had lots of friends and everything. And when this happened, I just feel like I got to be an introvert,” she said.
Carol remembers she and her parents were questioned by police and recalls getting asked questions about who Beverly hung out with at school and in the neighborhood.
According to the Ohio Attorney General’s website, “The investigation into this homicide has produced several possible suspects but no one has been charged. The case remains unsolved to this day.”
Detective Menary also provided a statement on the status of Beverly’s case. “Beverly’s case remains a top priority of The Garfield Heights Police Department and is still aggressively being investigated,” the statement read. “Some of the recent activity has included the following: Advanced M-Vac DNA testing on key pieces of evidence, which has resulted in newly discovered DNA, interviews of witnesses, and surveillance.”
Menary wrote that “The Garfield Heights Police Department has worked closely with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout this process” and that the department “been in frequent communication with Beverly’s sister, Carol, as new developments occur. It is our goal to give her and her family, as well as the community, the answers they deserve.”
Detective Menary closed his statement to Dateline, saying “the brutality of Beverly’s murder still hangs heavy on our hearts and we will never give up on seeking justice.” He later responded that there are currently suspects in the case, whom he did not name, and said “the advancement in DNA testing” has changed the way Beverly’s case is being investigated.
After 60 years of waiting, Carol is holding out hope that she will finally get some answers, and some justice, for her big sister. To this day, she recalls how much she looked up to Beverly, who wrote poetry and wanted to become a Latin teacher.
“She seemed just so sophisticated to me,” Carol said. “She listened to classical music and she wasn’t into Beatles, which was the rage back then. And she — one of her things that she wanted for Christmas was a Shakespeare — the whole complete works of Shakespeare.”
Within those works, Beverly might have paused on a line: “Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long…. In the end truth will out.”
On Saturday, December 28 a memorial mass was held for Beverly at the Jarosz family church, St. Therese in Garfield Heights. It was the 60th anniversary of Beverly’s murder. It is past time for the truth to come to light.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. Mark Menary of the Garfield Heights Police Department at 216-475-5686 or [email protected].
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