The Unsolved Murder of Betty Lou Zukowski, Part 4: A Suspect is Charged

I thought that there was absolutely no chance they'd arrest a suspect in the murder of 10-year-old Betty Lou Zukowski. But they did on November 2! 

In all honesty, however, I had considered the possibility that the investigation was ramping up when a Hell’s Acres commenter wrote to me last May: “In 1966, I was the nine-year-old fisherman that hooked this body, and it was a worm rig with a bobber, not a lure as the paper suggested. I had pretty forgotten about this until the police showed up to interview me today 56 years later.”

 

I knew that DA Anthony Gulluni had been taking decades-old unsolved homicides seriously, solving the murders of Lisa Ziegert and Danny Croteau. But this one was 56 years old! How, I asked, could they effectively pursue it? Well, if the commenter was indeed genuine, the cold case squad is certainly being thorough.

 

I had written three previous blog posts on the Zukowski murder, beginning in 2020. “Ralph,” who Zukowski’s friends said she used to meet with, allegedly turned out to be Donald R. Mars, who looked a lot like the police sketch in 1966.

In my last post, I had asked Betty Lou’s best friend to shed some light on the victim’s personality, which she did. “Adventurous” was probably too mild a term, considering she dyed her hair blonde, wore makeup and jewelry, hung out with teenage boys, and certainly got into the wrong car THAT night.

 

But what about Mars and his story? Right now we know that he is a Level 3 sex offender, convicted in 1995 of raping a child with force and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. His past, according to prosecutor Elizabeth Dunphy Farris, also included an assault and battery in 1970. During the arraignment, it was difficult to determine exactly when, over the past few decades, the guy was incarcerated and when he was a free man. From what I could gather, when he was convicted in May of ’95, he was sentenced to two-and-half years, was released in June of 1997 and given probation. He violated the probation in February of 1999 (two default warrants from 1997 I believe?) and was given a five- to seven-year sentence at Cedar Junction.

 

He eventually ended up as a prisoner at Bridgewater State Hospital for quite some time, before finally landing in a VA hospital in Bedford, MA, where he was living before being arrested and hauled into the arraignment hearing, which was done via Zoom.

 

Farris also mentioned Mars violating restraining orders from his family members in her argument for him to be held without bail. He emerged as a suspect in the Zukowski murder in 1997, but we don’t know how they connected him to it. However, we will. Did he blab about it to a fellow inmate at Bridgewater? Did a family member or friend get something off his/her chest? We’ll see.

 

Mars came from a well-known family in Chicopee. His father, Roger Mars, owned Mars Heating and Service, and had five sons. Roger served in Korea, and at least two of his sons was in the military: his older brother, and evidently Donald was as well, or he wouldn’t be treated in the Bedford VA. Donald was in the bowling and chess clubs at Chicopee Comp before graduating in 1967.

In 1980, Donald married a 1975 Chicopee Comp grad—presumably Donald's best friend, Richard Paine, was the best man at his wedding—and he was working at the R.E. Phelon plant in East Longmeadow. The couple had three kids together.

Donald has seen his fair share of tragedy and adversity in his life. In 1977, he discovered the murdered body of his friend, Russell Schlatter, in the victim's West Side apartment. The man had been strangled by Richard Rackliffe, a bisexual hustler, after Schlatter and Rackliffe had spent the night drinking heavily at The Arbor, a gay bar in downtown Springfield. Schlatter was found nude with an electrical cord wrapped tightly around his neck and a necktie knotted around his penis. Mars knew Rackliffe by his nickname of "Cherokee" and pointed him out at trial as the man who had been with Schlatter that night.

Was Mars also at The Arbor that evening? Apparently.

 

To be sure, things really soured for Donald after his 1995 conviction. In May of that year, the same month he was convicted, he forked over his Chicopee house to his wife, who divorced him. One of his two sons was killed when he was hit by a car in 2000 at the age of 14, and Donald is mentioned in the obituary as “residence unknown (FYI)”—I shit you not. His wife by then had remarried and he was estranged from the family. I guess he didn’t go to his son's funeral (?). Was he estranged from his parents as well? In 2010 they sent in an item to The Republican newspaper announcing they had renewed their vows and listed the names of four of their sons—but, strangely, not Donald. In 2020, Donald's brother died of COVID. I wonder if he attended that funeral.

 

Where was Donald living when he wasn’t in jail? There are addresses listed in Dorchester, Lynn, Chicopee, Springfield, and Boston (17 Court Street, the address for the New England Center and Home for Veterans). His Bridgewater address is from 2011 to 2016, so is 2016 when he finally got released from MCI-Bridgewater? I guess it will all come out at or before his trial in November of 2023.

 

What I’m really dying to see is what finally linked him to the murder. Gulluni did say during the press conference that “significant statements were made” (I guess by Donald?) regarding the homicide.

 

It remains to be seen if Donald will even survive long enough to stand trial. He looked really feeble at the arraignment, with a walker next to him and what I assume is a feeding tube attached to him. He seemed befuddled by what was happening, with a confused yet concerned face, which led me to believe he knew what was going on, despite his gaping mouth. He was able to bleat out a weak. high-pitched “not guilty” plea—the only thing he had to say, other than protesting with a mumbling moan at one point when Farris read off his criminal history. He seemed to want to dispute or correct the record on something in particular, but Farris ignored him and kept talking.

 

It’s interesting to see his slack-jawed sex offender mug shots over the years. He has really aged since his last one in 2018.

 

With the "air scoop" mouth look at the arraignment, I thought he was going for the insanity defense like bathrobe-wearing mafioso Vincent "The Chin" Gigante (below), but it turns out he's been photographed with that hanging jaw since 2015.

At the time of the murder, Donald was somewhat familiar with the area where Zukowski’s body was found. A quick newspaper archive search reveals that his family used to visit his grandparents' house at 102 Woodmont Street in West Springfield. This was an era in newspapers when people sent in little chit-chat items to be printed—where they went on vacation, hospital stays, dinner parties, and day visits—social “news” long before social media. It was reported that the Mars family went to their home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other occasions. This address is two miles (a four-minute drive) from the murder scene at the end of Dewey Street. On May 26, 1966, did Donald recall a remote fishing spot off Route 20 where he could do his dirty work unseen by motorists?

But enough of my amateurish internet sleuthing. I’m sure the DA’s office has much more compelling evidence than Mars visiting this neighborhood as a kid and teen.

The reaction to Mars’ arrest has been, understandably, shock among anyone who has been following the case—and that’s not many people, because the murder had been largely forgotten. Still, it was very much alive to Gulluni, and to Betty Lou’s contemporaries and friends.

 

Lisa, who was Betty Lou’s best friend at the time of the murder, was on a pond nature trail when she was notified of Mars’ arrest. “I was watching the water ripple in the slight breeze, and I was actually thinking about Betty Lou having been in the Westfield River, when my cell phone notified me of an incoming message,” she said.  “It was a good friend of mine telling me, ‘Your friend Betty Lou’s case was on the news! Her [alleged] murderer has been found!’ I started crying and handed my husband my phone to read the message. It feels so surreal. I have lived this nightmare for 56 years, and this month in 2022 my dream came true. I hope to be in that courtroom in 2023. I would love to present a victim impact statement directly spoken to that [alleged] murderer. I hope Mars and I both live long enough for that possibility, and I hope the judge will allow it.”

Read Part 1.

Read Part 2.

Read Part 3.