Criminology - Beverly Jarosz

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

In 1964, the murder of 16-year-old Beverly Jarosz, who was savagely attacked and killed in her own bedroom, shocked the community of Garfield Heights, Ohio. There were a number of people looked at closely in connection to Beverly's murder, but no one has yet been held responsible. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Beverly Jarosz. The authorities who worked the case all said it was the most gruesome murder they had ever seen. For over 60 years, Beverly's killer has escaped justice, but the day of her killer remaining unnamed may be coming to an end.   You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok  Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. 

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.

Good one and welcome to episode 379 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, buddy? I'm doing pretty good. I'm a little bit tired today. I need an extra shot of coffee, but I think I'm ready to go. How are you doing? Oh, I always need an extra shot of coffee. I can never have too much coffee. I might have a problem with coffee if that's possible. I know caffeine is either good or bad for you, depending on what article you read, but I definitely love my coffee and I drink quite a bit of it. Yeah, I can't function without it.

I know you're not a morning person too, so it definitely helps. And I just got the coolest thing. I like ice coffee in the afternoon, hot coffee in the morning, and I just got this cool freezer thing that you stick in your freezer and then you pour hot coffee into it and it instantly freezes it. So when you pour into your cup to make ice coffee, it doesn't melt all your ice. So, you know, it's just those little life-changing hacks like that with your, with your coffee that make a big difference. Yeah, my kids would like that because they love the ice coffee. I don't, I've not really gotten into that. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts and we had new support this week from Tara Brown.

So that's amazing. We really appreciate it. Oh, thank you so much, Tara. That means a lot to us. And for anyone else that would like to help support the show, head over to patreon.com slash criminology to get started. And more if it's kind of hard to believe, you know, you just got back from CrimeCon. I missed this one.

But we're already looking forward to the next one. It's in Vegas. It's only about eight, nine months away, happening May 29th to the 31st, 2006 at Caesar's Palace. I definitely do not plan on missing Vegas. Yeah, this is the second time in Vegas. The last time was a lot of fun. And it is crazy to think that it's already coming.

But, you know, this is something that's going to be high demand. A lot of people are already talking about. I've already had a couple of people reach out asking if they could use our promo code. And that's going to save 10% on their standard badges. So you can use that promo code criminology at crimecon.com. com and when you check out. Yeah, CrimeCon is always a blast and Vegas is definitely a blast. So we'll be on podcast row and we'll have our annual joint criminology T-Cat meetup.

So we look forward to seeing a lot of listeners there. All right, Morf, let's jump into this week's case. And we're going back in time to 1964 to discuss a brutal and shocking murder that happened in my home state of Ohio, the murder of 16-year-old Beverly Jeros, who was savagely attacked and killed in her own bedroom. For over 60 years, Beverly's killer has escaped justice. But as we'll talk about, the days of her killer remaining unnamed, may be coming to an end. In 1964, 16-year-old Beverly Jeroz, her 12-year-old sister Carol and their parents, Thaddeus and Eleanor, lived in a two-story home at 10-921 Thornton Avenue in Garfield Heights, Ohio. It was technically

one and a half stories with only a shared bedroom for the girls upstairs. Beverly was a junior at Marymount High, a private all-girls Catholic school. And I guess she could say that Beverly was an old soul. Instead of rock or pop music, she was a fan of classical music. She also loved art and enjoyed trips to the Cleveland Museum. But perhaps Beverly's greatest joy was writing poetry. She kept the book of poetry near her bed so she could immediately write down the words as they came to her. Well, Beverly was different from a lot of the 16-year-olds. She also had one thing in common with many of them. She wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do when she became an adult.

At times, she talked about becoming a Latin teacher, and at other times leaned towards becoming a nun. For now, as a 16-year-old, she was focused on her studies, and she had a part-time job at a local hospital. Life for the family was good in Garfield Heights, a city of just under 40,000 residents. while the crime rate was rising in Garfield Heights in 1964, as it was in much of the rest of the country, it was still a quiet and relatively safe place to live.

We say it in a lot of older cases that we talk about. It was the kind of neighborhood where people trusted each other. They knew their neighbors and they felt safe. Many people didn't lock their doors. But that would all change in December of that year. On the morning of December 28th, just a few days after, after Christmas, Beverly and Carol were out of school for winter vacation, but their parents both had to work. So after they all had breakfast, Beverly and Carol went to visit their grandmother,

Marie Vanek. It wasn't a far walk. She lived about a mile away from the Jeros home, up nearby Turney Road. On the way, they stopped at a bakery to buy a loaf of bread for lunch, as Marie had asked them to. Once they arrived at Marie's, they all had. ate lunch and then the girls helped shampoo their grandmother's hair. At around 11 a.m., Beverly called her friend Barbara Klanowski to finalize some plans for that afternoon. The plan was for Barbara to walk to the Jeros home. And then from there, she and Beverly would go to the home of a mutual friend, Margie Gorni. The three were going to go shopping at the mall together. They agreed that Barbara would get to the Jeros house at 1230 and they would head to Margie's shortly after.

So while Carol stayed behind, Beverly left her grandmother's house early that day so that she could go home and get ready. She was planning to wear a new sweater that she had just gotten for Christmas. Since she was in a hurry, she waited at the bus stop around the corner from her grandmother's house. While she was waiting, one of the neighbors was on her way home from getting groceries and saw Beverly standing at the bus stop. As soon as the neighbor's 18-year-old son got home from his job interview, his mom told him to give Beverly a ride home since it was coming. cold outside. James Mondesluski, the neighbor's son, picked Beverly up at the bus stop and drove her home.

He pulled right into the driveway and saw Beverly enter the home through the side door. But he left immediately after that. This was around 12.10 p.m. We know that soon after she got home, a jeweler called the Jeros home. Beverly's mother had inquired about repairing a necklace for her mother. But the jeweler examined it and determined that it wasn't something that. that could be fixed. Around 1 p.m., Beverly called her mother who was on her lunch break and relayed the message from the jeweler. At this time, Eleanor could hear classical music playing quietly in the background, and everything seemed fine. At some point, maybe before the jeweler called, maybe after,

Beverly answered the phone again. We only know the supposed name of the caller, but not what the call was regarding, but most people assume that the caller asked to speak with Beverly's dad, that he is. Beverly wrote on a notepad next to the phone, that a Steve Stachowitz had called and would try again later. Some sources say that this call from Steve came into the home at about 12.40 p.m., about 30 minutes after Beverly got home. Now, we should point out, if the call from this Steve came in prior to Beverly speaking to her mom at once, she didn't mention it to her. So it's possible that it came in after Beverly ended the call with her mom.

About 10 minutes after Beverly and Eleanor spoke on the phone about the call from the jeweler, Beverly's grandmother, Marie, called the check-onner. According to Marie, Beverly answered the phone and she was fine. They didn't talk for long because Beverly said she was waiting for her friend Barbara to get there. In fact, the call was so short that Beverly told her grandmother, I can't talk to you now. Barbara's here. Marie could hear a radio playing in the background as a phone disconnected, but noted nothing else of interest. Just before 1.30, which was about another 10 minutes after Marie's phone call, Barbara made it to Beverly's house.

She was running late that day, about a full hour late, to be exact. She walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell, but Beverly didn't answer. It was locked. She figured that the music was too loud for Beverly. to hear the doorbell, so Barbara went around to the side door. But the outer storm door was also locked. The inner door was slightly open, and Barbara could hear loud music coming from somewhere inside the home.

She knocked on the storm door and waited, but Beverly didn't come to unlock the door for her. At this point, Barbara was confused. She thought that maybe Beverly had just gone to Margie's without her, but it did seem like she was home since the door was open in the door. radio was on, she started to leap, but then she heard a few thumps that sounded like they came from the second floor of the home. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, maybe furniture moving, a drawer, or door slamming, or someone dropping something. But after the thumping, other than the music playing, everything was quiet. Now, after hearing the thumps, Barbara thought Beverly was

getting dressed and was rushing, and that caused the thumbs. So she went back to the front door and waited for a few minutes, even grabbing a magazine out of the mailbox to browse through until Beverly came to the door, but she never did. Finally, Barbara left the house. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she felt that maybe Beverly was angry with her for being so much later than the time they had agreed to. She thought to herself that maybe Beverly was home, but the open door and radio were a message to Barbara. She was being, ignored. And I think it's important to pause here and discuss the timeline. So 10 minutes before Barbara got to Beverly's home, Beverly was rushing her grandmother off the phone, saying she couldn't

talk because Barbara was there. And I think this brings to mind a couple scenarios. The first, maybe that Beverly did something many of us have done at one time or another, and that's to rush someone off the phone with an excuse of why he can't talk. But there are a couple other possibilities is worth considering. One, maybe Beverly heard a knock at the door when she was on the phone with her grandmother and rushed off the call, or perhaps Beverly's killer was already in the home with her and forced her to give an excuse to end the call. Yeah, Morve, I do think the timeline in this case is extremely important because of some of the calls made. You know, there is quite a bit known about what Beverly was doing at very exact times. And then you have,

you know, Barbara coming to the home. But I think, you know, these couple of scenarios that, that you put forth, you know, they're both scary in different ways. Obviously, if someone is in your house and forcing you to get off the phone. That's a very scary thought, but it's also scary to think that, you know, there was a knock at the door and whoever was knocking did something to Beverly once she opened that door. So from different reports I've read, Beverly was very safety conscious. She wouldn't just open the door to anyone that she didn't know. And their door, had a glass pane on it where she could see out to who was on the front step. So, you know, a couple of things come to my mind.

Maybe she was in such a rush and just assumed it was her friend Barbara that she opened it without looking. Another possibility is she did look out there and maybe she trusted the person she opened the door to because she knew them or maybe they had some kind of uniform on like a milk delivery guy, something like that, that she felt safe in opening the door to. But from all accounts, she wouldn't have just let someone into her home that she didn't know or might be fearful of. And that's an important point, right, to keep in mind as we go through this case. I mean, the statistics prove, right, that most people are killed by someone they know.

Most murders are not stranger murders. They do occur, but statistically you're more likely to be killed by someone you know. After Barbara walked away from Beverly's house, a boy named Gary Grayson, a friend of one of Barbara's friends, saw her walking and offered her ride home. After he dropped Barbara off around 2 p.m. She called Beverly to see if they could talk and try to figure out what had happened. There was no answer. This was all completely unlike Beverly.

Barbara said in a statement to the Plains dealer newspaper, Beverly was a very reliable person, always prompt. Since neither of her friends had shown up, Beverly or Barbara. Margie was trying to figure out where they were and when she could expect them. She called Beverly, but didn't get an answer. So then she called Barbara, who explained the situation at Beverly's house and how she was probably just mad at her. Margie decided to call Beverly's grandmother and see if she knew where she was.

Hearing what was going on at the home, worried Beverly's grandmother. At around 3.30 p.m., she called her son-in-law Thaddeus, Beverly's father, at his job, and told him everything she knew. This information also worried Thaddeus, and he rushed home to check on Beverly. Thaddeus co-owned his own business, Universal Lighting and Manufacturing Company, so he was able to leave immediately. He got home a little bit before 4.30 p.m. As he walked up to the door, he could hear that loud music was playing inside.

Beverly was pretty picky about how loud others turn up the radio and the TV. The volume that was blasting at was completely out of character for her, so it immediately didn't sit right with him. That is found the side storm door was closed, but unlocked. The inner door was still open. He also noticed that the back door, which the family never used, was open. The back storm door was closed, but unlocked. unlocked like the side storm door was. Beverly's purse and one of her books were on the kitchen

table. Her coat was hung over the banister at the bottom of the stairs. It was just like Beverly had gotten home, put her stuff down, turned on the radio, and gone upstairs. But something was just clearly very wrong. Thaddeus rushed up the stairs to the bedroom that his two daughters shared. The lights in the room were off. When he turned the lights on, he could see that Beverly was lying face down on the floor between the two twin beds. A blanket that was usually folded neatly at the end of Beverly's bed was on the floor under her body. There was blood on the floor and on the bed. There was a rope around her neck. A piece of it was still in her hand. Many modern articles and blogs note that Beverly's ankles were tied, but in early reports, only one article seems to mention this

detail. So it may have been an error. Beverly's sweater had been pulled down around her hips. Her bra and shirt had been pushed up and her pants, underwear and stockings had been pulled off her body. We know that she was planning to wear her new sweater that day. So this kind of gives us an idea of what Beverly was doing when she was attacked. It seems likely that she was changing out of the sweater that she wore to her grandmother's house that day so that she could put on the new sweater she got for Christmas. But she was interrupted sometime after she got her arms out of the sweater. Thaddeus immediately called his mother-in-law Marie in a panic.

Beverly's sister Carol was still there, and she remembers hearing her father screaming on the phone as he told his mother-in-law what happened. She told NBC news dateline that he was yelling, murder, murder, murder. He then composed himself and called police. When first responders arrived at the Dros home, Thaddi-Haddi-South. was still frantic. He pleaded with officers to do something for his daughter, but the situation was hopeless. Beverly was dead, murdered in her own bedroom. It was a horrific scene even for authorities.

Samuel Gerber, who is the Cuyahoga County Coroner in 1964, told Cleveland.com, Beverly's murder was as vicious a crime as I have seen in my 29 years as coroner. Garfield Heights Police Captain William Horrigan said, it's the worst killing I've ever seen. These were two seasoned authorities who said Beverly's murder was the worst they had seen. So that gives you some idea of just how bad it was. Garfield Heights Police knew that this case was especially heinous. And very early on, they consulted with the big city Cleveland Police Department, who had much more experienced dealing with these kinds of cases.

An autopsy revealed a lot about Beverly's murder and just how brutal it was. She had 42 knife wounds, including deep intentional stab wounds, with nicks and slices on her hands. Likely inflicted as Beverly tried to fight back against her attacker and defend herself. The number also includes disfiguring gouges to her face, likely done after she was killed. There were nine deep stab wounds to her back.

Her throat had been cut. Authorities believed the weapon that was used to stab Beverly was about four or five inches long. Most of the stab wounds Beverly received didn't puncture her clothes, meaning her clothes were likely off when she was stabbed. A frenzied stabbing spree wasn't the only thing that caused Beverly's death. Although the stab wounds could have proved to be fatal on their own, she had also been brutally strangled.

In fact, the strangulation was listed as her primary cause of death. It seems as though the attack was able to surprise her, probably from behind, with a length of rope, and once it was tightly around her throat, there was nothing Beverly could do, though she did try to fight back incredibly hard. A section of the wall above her bed had actually been damaged in the struggle. A hole had been kicked or maybe punched through it. But once that rope was around her neck, the attacker just had to hold on tight. Adding a knife to the scenario just meant that Beverly had to try to fend off each stab

while also trying to get free from the rope. We can tell that these attacks happened simultaneously, because not only was Beverly grasping part of the rope with one hand when she was found, the knife had actually severed the rope during the vicious attack. To say that this was a case of overkill would be an understatement. Despite the way Beverly was found, nude from the waist down with her sweater pulled up, the autopsy revealed that she had not been sexually assaulted. There was no blood or other evidence found under Beverly's fingernails,

and none of her nails were broken. Investigators were able to determine that the rope, which was actually an old clothesline and very widely available, did not come from inside Beverly's house, meaning that whoever killed Beverly had brought it with them that afternoon. The rope itself was interesting in the fact that it was actually three lengths of rope that were tied together with multiple loops in it. An investigation revealed a dozen finger or palm prints. were found in the upstairs bedroom. Eventually, all but three were identified as belonging to members of Beverly's family. There is some conflicting information about whether or not Beverly's letter opener, which she always kept nearby for protection, was missing or not.

Some sources state that her sister Carol has it and other state that it was missing along with Beverly's diary, leading some to wonder whether the attack was actually a sexual assault. gone terribly wrong. With the item Beverly kept nearby to feel safe, sadly being the thing used to attacker because the killer could also reach it. Beverly's diary seems to be the one thing that was certainly missing from the home. Nothing else of value was taken. So morphas, we detailed out, you know, this attack on Beverly. It was very vicious, very heinous as, you know, seasoned authorities said it was the worst they'd ever seen. And I can't even imagine what Thaddeus was going through that day when he found his daughter in that way. I mean, that's, it's a nightmarish situation

for anyone, especially a parent to find their, their child like that. But I'm also thinking about what Beverly was going through during this attack, you know, a rope around her neck. It's clear from everything that we could see here that this was a brutal attack. You know, the killer used a rope and some kind of blade and 40 plus stab wounds. You know, just on top of strangulation, it seems like overkill for sure. And, you know, this seems like a crime of passion. I think a lot of people would describe this as that many stab wounds. So this makes you wonder, did this person,

know Beverly, did they have some kind of issue with her if she wasn't sexually attacked. So maybe that wasn't really the motive. Maybe they had a beef or a gripe with her. Well, then again, maybe, you know, that they weren't able to complete the sexual attack for some reason or another. But it just, you know, this really paints a picture of how awful her murder was. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Canine tracking dogs were able to follow a scent from Beverly's room, down the stairs, out the back door, and around the corner to McCracken Road, a main street in the area. They couldn't figure out which direction the sent went from there, leading investigators to believe that the killer may have gotten into a car parked around the corner of McCracken. When neighbors were questioned, no one had seen anything suspicious. As word spread about Beverly's murder on the quiet street,

local residents were horrified and on high alert. A couple of weeks after Beverly was killed, A delivery man who had been in the area came forward to say that he recalled seeing a young man, walking away from the Jeros home sometime between 1.30 and 2.30 on the day of the murder. The delivery man could only give a vague description of the young man. And although police tried to create an identicate sketch of the youth, it didn't work well. Police wanted to question this young man, but they never identified him. Another lead that police thought was strong came in from the receptionist of a local doctor's office,

located less than a mile from Beverly's home. She told police that on the day of Beverly's murder at around 2 p.m., a middle-aged man came into the office seeking aid for a deep cut on his hand. The receptionist told him that they couldn't treat it, and the wound required a hospital visit. After that, the man walked out of the office. Police checked with local hospitals and could find no man who had received treatment on his hand on the day of the day of the day. the murder. Police asked several local doctors if they had treated such a man with an injury like that, and none had. This man was described as white, about five foot seven to five foot eight,

and being 35 to 40 years of age with a stocky billed. Police wanted to question this man, but they never identified him. So no doubt, police had a couple of interesting leads or at least suspicious people or people they wanted to question. And that's a good thing, right? That's good information. The problem is if you can't identify either of these people, which the police ultimately couldn't, then you never get to talk to them. Now, one of these individuals could have been the killer.

Or at the very least, they could have seen something that would have given the police more information to go on. Yeah, these both seem like tantalizing leads and, you know, maybe they were connected to her murder. Maybe they weren't. But, you know, on paper, just from the details that we see, you know, one guy is seen walking away from Beverly's home. The other guy has a deep hand wound. So, you know, certainly the police would want to just include.

choir with these guys and rule them out. And, you know, but unfortunately not being able to identify them prevents that. Well, and the guy with the deep cut on his hand to me is especially interesting. If you think about the number of stab wounds that we talked about, depending on what kind of weapon was used, it's very common for an attack like that to cause a wound on the perpetrator. Your hand slips and makes contact with the blade part and you get a deep cut because it's so frenzied. Police wanted to check with people close to Beverly to see if they could

offer anything of value and asked Beverly's friends if they knew of anyone who might have a reason to be angry with Beverly. But no one came to mind and nobody that police talked to could name a suspect that they thought could be responsible for her murder. There was no one that anyone could think of that would want her dad or that they felt could be capable of such awful violence. She was generally described as a nice person, loved by all who met her. She did volunteer work at a hospital. She wasn't out there causing problems, making people angry who would want to take revenge against her, not obviously anyway. But it seems as if someone certainly had a deep-seated hatred for Beverly. But who hated Beverly so much that they were willing to strangle her

and stab her 40 plus times? This seemed extremely personal, but police were out of loss. Investigators tried to leave no stones on turn and questioned everyone Beverly knew. They started with Beverly's boyfriend at the time, 18-year-old Roger McNamara, who cooperated with the investigation and reportedly passed a polygraph exam. Roger had been at the Dros' home the night before the murder. A few neighbors had gone to the home for a dinner party the night before, and Roger showed up during the gathering. No one noticed anything wrong between him and Beverly. Roger was also Beverly's friend Margie's cousin. Surely she would have noticed if he were acting suspicious. Roger's alibi was that he was sick at home when Beverly was killed.

One of the people police hoped to track down was the mysterious steve that had called for Beverly's father and Beverly wrote down the message. Investigators were never able to track down a man of this name. And Beverly's dad didn't know anyone with a name remotely close to that. Police came to believe that this caller may have been Beverly's killer, trying to ascertain if Beverly was home alone that day. There are various spellings and pronunciations of this name and newspapers and online. They range from Stakowitz to Stankowitz to various spellings of Steve or Stephen. We can assume it wasn't someone Beverly knew or she would have recognized their voice.

Unlike today, tracking phone numbers that had called the Dero's home was not something that could be easily done in 1964. So there's no telling where the killer called from, although we know something was wrong at close to 130 to 140 and that Beverly had received a call from the mysterious deep sometime after 1230 when she got home. So if the caller was her killer, he had to have called from not too far away to fit the timeline. The use of the rope on Beverly

wore the need to use the knife because the killer wasn't able to overpower Beverly with only the rope, and the fact Beverly was not sexually assaulted led some investigators to wonder whether they should be looking for a female suspect. Some people suspect that Beverly's friend Barbara isn't telling the truth about Beverly's murder.

To this day, many people online speak about the case as if she's the only possible suspect. A lot of them didn't buy her claim that she could hear some mysterious thump coming from upstairs over the music. And people are suspicious of the fact that she left the house, even though things were weird at the home. And she didn't wait to hear from Beverly. But one of the reasons that Barbara just left instead of being more insistent

that Beverly come to the door is that she felt Beverly might have been mad at her because she showed up late. If you thought a friend was mad at you and didn't want to talk to you, do you really think it would calm them down to keep knocking and ringing their doorbell? people also ask why she didn't go to a neighbor's house and tell them something was wrong some people find it odd that barbara didn't go to their friend margie's plan the thinking there is that barbara had to go home to wash up change and figure out how to cover her tracks but the whole reason that barbara was going to beverly's that day before they went to margie's or the mall is that she didn't want to meet up with margie without beverly the two were best friends and barbara who was newer to the friend group, felt more comfortable hanging out if Beverly was there. Why would she suddenly go to Margie's alone when that was kind of the whole point? Many wonder whether the canine dogs were tracking Barbara sent to McCracken Road

and suspect that Gary Grayson was actually her getaway driver. Remember, he claimed he had given her a ride after she walked away from Beverly's. If he wasn't involved and wasn't her getaway driver, then surely he would have seen blood all over Barbara after she got into his car. Barbara has been dragged through the mud since the early days of the investigation. It seems like even some of Beverly's family suspected her over the years. Barbara told Cleveland.com, you can't imagine what it was like to be a 16-year-old and have people call you up in the

middle of the night and call you a murderer. It seems that the police never have considered Barbara as a suspect in the murder of her friend. But how terrible is that to be in that situation? right your friend is found murdered which is a horrible thing in and of itself and then the aftermath is that people are thinking you're a part of it or you were the one who murdered her now i get it in these types of cases people online speculate about a lot of things today but it seems as though even back then in the 60s people were calling her up on the phone, calling her a murderer. That's a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a 16-year-old.

Yeah, and I understand why some people would say, hey, we have to consider her because she was there right around the time. You know, the murder happened. You know, some of the things she said don't sit right with people. But at, you know, at the end of the day, there's no physical evidence that ties her to the crime. And, you know, what she's had to deal with for all these years, is terrible. And I didn't really look at her story as being all that suspicious. I could see that playing out just the way that she described it. You're 16 years old.

You go to your friend's house. You're late, like an hour late, and they don't answer. You could rightly assume that they're upset with you and they don't want to come to the door. And I also think that, you know, 16-year-old. isn't probably looking at this from the perspective of, you know, an adult where an adult might say something seems off here. I need to take another step to go in here and check this out, see what's going on. Maybe, you know, Beverly has hurt. Maybe something has happened. You know, I don't think a 16-year-old is thinking about that kind of stuff and thinking about, you know,

any possibility that her friend is upstairs being murdered. So, you know, I think, it just, you know, it's maybe a little bit of being naive at her age and not, you know, thinking the worst in that situation. The prevailing theory is that whoever killed Beverly was interested in her romantically and was enraged, that they were rejected by her. And if the killer was female, then she must have been jealous of Beverly who was popular, smart, and pretty. This seemed to clearly not be a case of a robbery gone.

wrong. Nothing of value was taken from the home and it wasn't ransacked. This murder seemed deeply personal and targeted. The killer planned ahead and brought that length of rope already nodded and ready. If they were the mystery collar steep, then the killer made sure that Beverly was home alone and also thought enough ahead to use a false name. The neighbor who dropped Beverly off at her home that day, James Mondesluski, had been dressed up for a job in her room. view. He was on his way home after her when his mother had asked him to take Beverly home. If Beverly did have a stalker, especially one somewhere in her neighborhood, could they have seen her being dropped off to an empty home by a sharply dressed man, as if she didn't want

her family to know what she was up to? Could this have somehow fueled the hatred of Beverly? Or if the killer is female, did it stir up a rage because Beverly had a boyfriend and still had this other man doting on her? The possibilities seem endless. What authorities and most people discussing the case online seem to agree on is that Beverly must have been familiar with and comfortable with the person who killed her. The entire Giroux family was pretty safety conscious and always kept the doors locked. Beverly was so quick to lock the door, she accidentally locked her parents out at least once. Then again, thinking that Beverly knew her killer and let them in is a pretty big assumption. It's possible he or she got into the house without her knowledge and attacked her.

She could have let the killer in when she opened the door expecting that she was opening it for her friend Barbara. There's troubling evidence that in the days and weeks before she was killed, Beverly was being stocked and possibly by more than one person. She had been receiving anonymous gifts of jewelry, some in the mailbox, and some pieces that were left on the back porch with a note that, it read, to Bev. One night, Thaddy has caught a man standing in the yard, staring up the window of Carol and Beverly's room. He chased him down the street, but lost him, and wasn't able to identify him for police. Someone was also calling the Druus home multiple times a day, and hanging up as soon as anyone, no matter who it was, answered. Sometimes, this happened more than 10 times in one day. The call stopped about three weeks before Beverly was killed. Although there was no

proof, Beverly's parents suspected that the hang-up collar and the anonymous jewelry gift her were the same person. Even though the anonymous admirer kind of freaked Beverly out, she did sometimes wear the ring that they had left for her. Did she have a good idea of who may have left it? She could have written that down in her diary, but we'll never know since that diary is missing. And we really haven't talked, you know, too much about the diary, but it does stand out, right? For that to be really the one thing that was taken, to me, kind of goes against any kind of like stranger theory. I mean, what stranger goes in, murders a 16 year old girl and takes her diary. Again, all of this points back to the murder being personal. And as you pointed out,

you know, maybe the taking of the diary was because the killer thought that their identity or something about them might be in there. Yeah, that's a very interesting thing to think about is why did that diary need to be taken? You know, is there a clue in there? And if that diary was ever found, might it help provide answers in this case? And I guess there's one alternative, you know, maybe this was. of some kind of trophy that this killer took and could always look back and read her words and get some kind of thrill out of that, but I don't think there's any real way to know one way or the

other. A security guard at the Cleveland Museum of Art recalled a man following Beverly as she admired the exhibits the summer before her death. The guard, Virgil Austin, who saw her being followed, told the plane dealer, if looks could kill, Beverly Jeroz would have died in the museum. museum. If she was being stalked, it's not hard to believe that she would have been followed to the museum. She went there a lot and was particularly fond of the French impressionistic galleries. The man said to be following her was described as a tall, thin, angry looking man.

Was this person someone that was angry with Beverly and really stalking her? Or was this just a fellow museum goer looking at the same things? Beverly was looking at. Beverly's murder hit her family hard, and it's almost as if they seemed certain that Beverly was doomed to her fate. Her mother, Eleanor, told Cleveland.com, I had a premonition. Every time I looked at Beverly, I was concerned about her. I thought that something was going to happen to her body. This had been going on since around the time Beverly turned 16.

And when Margie called Beverly's mother, Marie, because she hadn't shown up that faithful day, her first thought was, oh my God, she's dead. Even Beverly may have had a premonition that she was in danger or wouldn't live a long life. She kept the sharp letter opener with her at all times in her home, almost as if she was planning to be ready to defend herself. Beverly, who often wrote poetry, pinned the following. From out of the depths of my soul, there arises a certain fear. What if I should die within the next year? Life for me has just begun.

All of my dreams would be unfilful. fulfilled, all of my work left undone, all my goals unreached. My life would have been in vain. So no doubt, those are some chilling words to hear from a 16-year-old Beverly, but it makes you think, you know, were these the thoughts of a teenager coming to realize that life doesn't last forever and that we're all mortal and wrestling with, you know, all of that type of stuff? Or was something darker going on?

And did Beverly suspect or have reason to believe? leave. She might be in danger. Beverly's sister Carol Jeros Bartos went on to honor Beverly by publishing a collection of her poetry. Unfulfilled, a book of the poetry of Beverly Jeros, which you can find on Amazon. We talked about how Beverly's murder shocked her community, understandably so, and police hoped to ease residents' minds by quickly identifying a suspect, but that's not what happened. It was frustrating to police that they couldn't close the case right. away, and they felt someone had to have some information or tip, perhaps someone who had witnessed

something. Patrol commander Robert Sackett was quoted in Cleveland.com as saying, nobody can enter that house, commit a crime, and not leave some kind of evidence behind. Our hope is that it was collected and can lead to solving this crime. Although no suspects were immediately pinpointed by police, suspicion did fall on various people. Just two weeks after Beverly's murder, Lindley Michael Bang, who was a junior in high school and lived near the Jeros family, took his own life, leading to speculation that he was responsible for Beverly's murder

and was subsequently overcome by guilt. But he had an alibi, and Linley was working his regular shift at a grocery store during Beverly's murder. As far as anyone knew, the two didn't know each other. He had a history of depression, and the holidays can be very tough for people, which may have played a role in his suicide. Police considered other young men in Beverly's murder.

17-year-old neighbor, John Palian, who lived at 11,05 Thornton Avenue, two houses over from Beverly, was caught on at least one occasion watching her as she sunbathe in the backyard. The two went to elementary school together and grew up just two houses away from each other. He had no real alibi.

He was home alone when Beverly was killed. However, he was cleared when he passed a polygraph examination. Now, we all know that polygraphs aren't admissible in court, but back in 1964, they really carried a lot of weight. Maybe John Pellion was simply a young teenage guy, like a lot of guys his age, that might check out a girl's sunbathing in her yard. It doesn't make him a killer, but hopefully investigators didn't rely on a polygraph alone to rule him out as Beverly's killer. Another guy looked at was 21-year-old Bruce Byleck, who lived with his parents in the home directly behind the Drew's family, and he also went to the same church.

He was even known to drive Beverly home from church on occasion. He said that during the time that Beverly was attacked, he was in the garage working on his car. This alibi is backed up by his parents. Since he had what was considered a solid alibi, he was never asked to take a polygraph exam and he didn't volunteer. Beverly and her ex-boyfriend Daniel Schulte had been broken up for over a year.

If he had been bitter and jealous all that time, you would think he would be the first person thought of when they heard that Beverly had been murdered. Suspicious to some, he reportedly stopped cooperating and moved out of the country sometime after the murder. There's one commonly discussed person that would make a very good suspect.

He was capable of grade violence and had a long criminal history. but he also isn't someone that Beverly was likely to open the door for, especially if she wasn't expecting him. 17-year-old Harry Maydall, who was working as a door-to-door salesman, peddling encyclopedias and books, when he attacked 28-year-old Gert Alidi in her home in Illyria, Ohio. At the time, she was about five months pregnant. Maidall managed to stab her twice, once in the stomach, but she said, screamed so loudly that a neighbor came running to check on her. This interrupted the attack and

Maidall fled. At the time of Beverly's murder, he was living with his mother off of McCracken Road, about a mile away from the Jeros home. In the fall of 1964, Maidall moved to Garfield Heights and was hired at Halley's department store in Cleveland. The Jeros family did shop there on occasion. However, there's no proof that they ever crossed paths and, you know, and the anonymous gifts were left for Beverly in June three months before Maidall moved to the area. If he was her killer, he was likely not the person sending her gifts. It's not clear if he had an alibi for Beverly's murder, but he was never charged with her murder and spent years behind bars and then later on the run after violating parole.

So, you know, there's some people we talked about here. this made-all guy is interesting because sometime after Beverly was murdered, he committed this attack on a pregnant woman in her home. He was a door-to-door salesman. You know, you have the ex-boyfriend, but they had been broken up for over a year. You've got the neighbor who was kind of watching her sunbathe. And then you have the guy that went to her high school who, you know, ended his life. I mean, they're, they're all interesting people to talk about,

but there's very little, if anything, that's concrete that would really kind of point to them as being the killer. Yeah, I think it really goes to show that there was a wide net cast in this case and people that were in the area, you know, whether they, you know, took their own life, or had once watched Beverly Sunbathing or the one guy lived down the street but not till after, he winds up committing a terrible crime. It makes sense to look at all these people and consider them, but at the end of the day, there's nothing that, as far as we know, directly connects them to Beverly's murder.

In early 1965, someone confessed to Beverly's murder. It was kidnapper William Rehard, who was 20, two years old at the time. He reportedly told Cleveland Detective Vincent Farini that the murder weapon, a butcher's trimming knife, and some of Beverly's clothes could be found in a locker at a Greyhound bus station, and according to Frini, he found them. The Garfield Heights Police Department has no record of this, or any evidence turned in by Farine regarding Beverly's murder. So this is a murky area of the case, and it seems like there's some uncertainty here regarding this potential suspect. and what was or was not done as far as investigating Rehard.

Whether or not this guy Rehard was involved in Beverly's murder isn't clear. But what is clear is that he was not a nice guy. He was a sex offender who, while out on parole, kidnapped a seven-year-old Cleveland girl named Donna Adkins in January 1965, just over a week after Beverly's murder. According to the Cleveland press, he took this young girl to a motel room. where he photographed her nude and sexually assaulted her. He then drove her away from the motel where he heard broadcasts on the radio about the abduction.

Panicked, he kicked her out of the car and shot her in the eyes with a tear gas gun so she couldn't see an ID him before letting her go. The damage to Donna's left eye was so bad that doctors couldn't save it. Courageously, Donna provided enough info to police. that they were able to ID Rehaar as her abductor and he was arrested. While awaiting trial in the Cuyahoga County Jail, Rehard took his own life by hanging himself. If he had anything to do with Beverly's murder, he took that secret to the grave. There's another unsolved case that is eerily similar to Beverly's murder that some people think could be connected. Just six months earlier on June 30th, 1964, and less than 200 miles away in West Bridge, Ohio,

14-year-old Jessica Minner was stabbed the death in her living room when she was home alone, sometime between 9 and 11 a.m. It was a savage attack, and Jessica had been stabbed at least 19 times, and some reports said it was as many as 21 times. There was no sign of sexual assault. The family dog was locked in the garage, but was unharmed. It was known to bark easily when people came to the home, but no one recalls hearing it that morning.

There was a glass window in the front door, just like the judge. Rose family's storm doors. So it's believed that she could have seen who was at the door before opening it. So she possibly knew or trusted her killer. Her case has never been solved. Despite the two cases being very similar and happening in the same state six months apart, there's no evidence that two cases are connected. And it's not clear how closely a possible connection was looked into by police. Seven years after Beverly's murder, while Beverly's sister Carol was away at college, Thaddeus and Eleanor attended a neighbor's funeral and returned home to find that the house had been broken into. As far as valuables, only a gold watch

had been stolen. But interestingly, two of Beverly's favorite paintings, which Thaddeus had framed for her, had been taken off the wall and had their backings torn off. Was this done just to destroy them in some way, or was the intruder looking for something, maybe something that Beverly had revealed in her diary, that had been hidden in one of her paintings. No one was ever caught for the break-in, and it's unclear if it was related to Beverly's murder. Following Beverly's murder,

her family tried to go on with her lives the best they could. Eventually, weeks with no arrest became months and then years. Beverly's murder and her absence from the home weighed on her family. Beverly Sister Carol told Cleveland.com, we didn't mention her name. It was there under the surface, always. And to make matters worse, for years after the murder, until Carol was a freshman in high school and eventually joined a convent,

she had to sleep in the same bedroom where her sister was killed. In 1980, Thaddeus and Eleanor Jeroz divorced. Eleanor moved out of the home, and Thaddeus stayed behind in the house his daughter died in. Eleanor was quoted by Cleveland.com as saying, I don't think I ever talked about it to him. It was so painful. We never discussed it.

Eleanor explained that the lack of talking is one of the main reasons their relationship broke down. Thadius Jeroz passed away in 2012 at the age of 90, still living in the house on Thornton Avenue. In 2018, Eleanor, who was 92, passed away in her home. They never learned who killed their daughter. And you see this in these types of cases morph all the time. Just what kind of damage is done to the family?

You know, oftentimes it's very hard for couples to stay together after something like this happens. You know, either a divorce takes place or, you know, they've got to move out of the home. here there was a divorce between Thaddeus and Eleanor, but Thaddeus stayed in the home his entire life. And for a long time, Carol had to sleep in the very bedroom where her sister was murdered. I feel like that would be very tough. Yeah, and I wonder if maybe it's because he didn't want to leave that home because he felt a connection to his daughter there. But no doubt it would be a constant daily reminder of what. happened there and her sister having to sleep in that bedroom. I don't know how she was able to do that.

You know, maybe a fresh start moving out of that house might have helped this family stay together and wouldn't have wound up in a divorce. But there's no way to know that. You know, as you mentioned, families of victims that go through this, it takes such a toll on them that a lot of times divorces is the final result. Despite Beverly's case, going cold for decades. It wasn't forgotten. In the fall of 2015, the Vidox Society, who we've mentioned before in the show, took a look at the case. For those listeners are not familiar with them. They're a group of criminologist and forensic experts based in Philadelphia. After sorting through the case, they identified a new suspect. This person hasn't been named publicly,

but is described as a family friend of the Jeroses, someone who Beverly would have unlocked a door for. This is interesting because Detective Captain William Horrigan reportedly identified such a suspect and began to call him every year on the anniversary of Beverly's murder. Until one year, the suspect called him first. Many people have left flowers or condolences for Beverly on the find a grade memorial page for her. One of them, William Burke, seems to have gotten a lot of attention online. His most recent and most detailed entry in August. of 2025 reads Beth. Every time I hear the train whistle, I think of you, I think of the good times we had together,

never any bad times. You were so beautiful, nice, and kind to me. You're always in my heart. We have no way to verify this, but according to people discussing the case online, William and Beverly weren't friends and had only met maybe once. Was this someone who simply was paying his respects to Beverly for being kind to him? Or is there something sinister to his comments? It's just something we don't know.

Sometimes in a case like this, patience and advancements in science can one day lead to answers. In 2019, Detective Carl Begacki of the Garfield Heights Police Department told Vox8.com that investigators had identified at least two prime suspects using technology and science and some other investigative routes. Articles from late 2024 mentioned newly discovered, DNA, thanks to the use of M-backed technology on multiple items and evidence.

It's possible that authorities are still working to obtain a usable DNA sample from the family friend or that they're still trying to amplify a too small sample of that new DNA. This suspect has apparently refused to give a DNA sample or be fingerprinted multiple times over the years and has also refused to sit for a polygraph exam. Perhaps one day, DNA evidence in Beverly's case will finally provide answers. and her killer might finally be named. There also remains unidentified prints from Beverly's bedroom that may one day be linked to someone.

Ultimately, this case might not even come down to that DNA and those unidentified fingerprints because investigators think it's possible that Beverly's killer may have confided in someone over the past 60 years. Detective by Gacky told foxa.com, we need someone who has firsthand knowledge, someone that has been sitting on a secret for years. He also said to Cleveland.com,

how could it happen and no one have ever talked about it? The detective may be correct. Maybe someone out there does hold the key to solving the 60-year-old murder case of 16-year-old Beverly Jeroz. If you have any information about the murder of Beverly and Jeroz, you can contact the Garfield Heights Police Department by calling 216-475-56-86-86.

So morph as we wrap up this episode, again, no doubt this was an absolutely horrific, vicious murder. The details are tough. There's no way around it. And we talked about, you know, a number of individuals who have been looked at over the years. Now, we just said, right, the detective said,

out there who knew something. They've been sitting on the secret. And maybe that's true. But I have a feeling that this case is probably going to come down to DNA. You know, of all the people we talked about, the person that interests me the most is this family friend who has not been named. This person who has refused to give a DNA sample, be fingerprinted, sit for a polygraph. it really seems like there's some smoke there.

I don't know if there's fire, but there's definitely smoke. Yeah, it certainly seems like this is somebody that would be interesting. And as we mentioned, it's somebody that Beverly would have probably opened the door for without hesitation and let into her house. And the fact they're not cooperating,

you know, it's pretty frustrating, I'm sure, for police. Because if this was somebody that was a family friend, why not cooperate and try and help, and just clear your name at least and let them move on to somebody else. So, you know, that's frustrating.

But also frustrating just right from the start in this case were various potential leads that, you know, people that police wanted to track down and talk to just to rule them out or see if they might be responsible. You know, you had the guy, the young man walking away from Beverly's home. You had the guy at the hospital with a cut hand. they're never able to identify those guys. You had the strange call from the Steve character. You have to wonder, was that the killer calling? You know, or was it, you know, a call that is red herring and it was a person really calling for Thadius,

although he seemed to not know who that was. But these are all frustrating leads that police had to deal with from the very onset of the investigation. Well, I think the one thing you'd have to say about this. case is it's very mysterious because you have this family friend that police seem to be very interested in and I am as well I go back to you know my my earlier thoughts which are to me it seems as though Beverly's killer was someone who was known to her that's my thought now whether she knowingly let this person in because she knew them or not, I don't know, but I think that's a distinct possibility. You know, the taking of the diary just continues to stand out to me.

Could a stranger take the diary? Yeah, it's possible. But I feel like it's more likely that someone who knew her would take it. Either because of the fact that it's a connection to her, or there was something in there that they thought might give their identity away. And you have to wonder if that diary is still out there someplace. Maybe one day somebody finds it and the family members belongs or something after they're, you know, they pass away. And then that, you know, is a huge benefit to the case if it gets turned in. Or maybe that person, the killer took it and has since disposed of it.

and the diary is never going to be found. It's, um, you know, it's, it's, it's just an interesting thing that, that might help the case one day if it's ever found.

Yeah. I mean, if the killer was smart, they would dispose of it. But that's not what most killers do. Right. If they're taking something like that, they're holding on to it because it,

it gives them something, some type of rush or, you know, something like that. But again, DNA advancing. You have this MVAC technology. I do think this is one that is going to be solved in the near future. I really do. I certainly hope so. And this I'm going to be keeping my eye open to see if there's any dual ones in the case. Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on

Beverly Jeroz. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a rating and a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. You can also go to our website, criminologypodcast.com, to get news, find old episodes, and more. And if you want to join our Facebook discussion group, head over to Facebook and go to Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morph.

We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.