Zarate guilty on all counts
This kid is a real animal. Tying him to a rope, throwing buckets of blood out there, and towing him offshore for sharkbait would be kinder than what he deserves. Convicted on all counts.
ZARATE GUILTY OF KILLING TEEN GIRL
Jury rejects defense he was psychotic
December 16, 2008
Jonathan Zarate faces the rest of his life in prison on his conviction Monday for murdering teenage neighbor Jennifer Ann Parks with his fists, a pole and a knife in his father's basement in Randolph in 2005 and desecrating her remains by cutting off her legs.
A Morris County jury of eight men and four women deliberated just two hours Monday, swiftly rejecting Zarate's defense that he was in a psychotic state and irrationally angry when he beat the 16-year-old Randolph High School sophomore, choked her with a bandanna, and kicked and stabbed her four times on July 30, 2005, after she insulted his younger brother.
Zarate, now 21, tried to stuff Parks' full body into a footlocker. She was too large for the makeshift coffin so he wound up cutting off her legs below the knees, wrapping the limbs in trash bags, and squeezing most of her corpse into the trunk.
Zarate, his younger brother, James Carl, then 14, and a 16-year-old friend from Clifton were caught by passing Secaucus police officers around 3 a.m. on July 31, 2005, as they were preparing to hurl the trunk over the Union Avenue Bridge in Rutherford into the Passaic River. Zarate at first apologized and said that he was just trying to discard trash from his father's refrigerator.
The victim's mother, Laurie Parks, and relatives and supporters gasped, cried out and grabbed each other in tight embraces when jury foreman Kenneth Nies uttered the word guilty to the first charge of murder.
"It's heartbreaking what transpired here," Nies said after the verdict.
Defense lawyer Richard Mazawey had used a defense of diminished capacity, or that Zarate suffered a mental defect or disease that made him incapable of forming the intent to purposefully and knowingly kill Parks. The defense had conceded that Zarate was lucid when he severed Parks' legs and tried to dispose of her body in the river. In the 24-hour period between the murder and attempted disposal, Zarate went to church and attended two parties, including a "Sweet 15" party for a cousin in Florham Park.
"This is Jennifer's day," her mother said at an afternoon news conference. "Jennifer, wherever you are, we love you."
The mother, who said she couldn't have endured the years since the killing without the support of friends, relatives and the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, said she couldn't forgive Zarate.
"No, no. I mean, what he did ... he took my only child away from me," she said.
Parks' father, David Parks, wept softly after the verdict, which included guilty findings beyond murder for possession of a metal pole and a knife for an unlawful purpose, unlawful possession of those weapons, hindering apprehension, desecrating human remains and using a juvenile -- the Clifton teen -- to commit a crime. Sentencing was set for Jan. 16, and county Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi said office calculations are that Zarate could be sentenced to 104 years or more.
"One down," David Parks said. He was referring to the anticipated spring trial of Zarate's brother, James, now 18, on a charge of participating in the murder and the attempt to dump Parks' body. James Zarate contends he had nothing to do with the killing but that he did help Jonathan with the attempted cover-up.
David Parks said the last 3 1/2 years have been "hell."
"There's no other way to describe it," he said. "I don't care what his state of mind was, it will never bring my daughter back. Conversations at the grave suck. It's one-sided."
Zarate took the verdict calmly and flashed a smile to his mother, Flora Mari, who started to weep as her son was led by sheriff's officers from the courtroom. Both Mari and Zarate's father, John, declined comment afterward.
"This is a time for reflection and meditation," said Mazawey, the defense lawyer. "We're going to think about it and pray on it."
County Assistant Prosecutors Robert Lane and David Bruno presented evidence to show that Zarate invited Parks to his home at 11 Old Brookside Road in Randolph around 1:30 a.m. on July 30, 2005, after they had instant-messaged each other on their computers for a few hours. They watched a few television shows and then Zarate got enraged and punched Parks after she insulted his younger brother and wouldn't stop talking about how he bullied her back in 2003.
James Zarate was forced to leave the Randolph school district after he teased Parks with remarks about her appearance and threw a rock through Laurie Parks' car window. Lane, the assistant prosecutor, argued at trial that the murder was a "payback," or Jonathan Zarate's chance to get Parks for the trouble he believed she caused his sibling.
A defense psychiatrist opined at trial that Zarate was in a psychosis and not criminally responsible for the killing, but a state-hired psychiatrist testified that Zarate knew what he was doing and recalled the details with an extreme clarity that would not have been possible had he been in a true psychotic state.
Bianchi, at the afternoon news conference, noted "there still appears to be little remorse" on Zarate's part for the murder the prosecutor called "one of the most horrific crimes we've seen committed."
Zarate's conviction is the fifth homicide conviction the office has achieved in the past eight months.
"By the estimations of all law enforcement officers involved, the acts committed by the defendant were of the most vile, horrific, brutal, disgusting and cowardly that seasoned law enforcement professionals have ever witnessed. The senseless and brutal nature of this crime committed against this sweet and innocent teenager defy description," Bianchi said.
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Originally Posted by captnemo
ROBERT SCIARRINO/THE STAR-LEDGERSurrounded by Morris County Sherif's officers, Jonathan Zarate, 21, orange jumpsuit, is sentenced by Morristown Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto to life plus an additional 24 years for the murder and dismemberment of 16 year old Jennifer Parks. With Zarete is his attorney, Richard Mazawey.