Burlington, NJ, cold cases include Narras, Margaret Fox, Celina Mays

Sasikala and Anish Narra were brutally murdered in their apartment in the Fox Meadows apartment complex Maple shade on March 23, 2017.

Sasikala Narra, 38, a software engineer, and her 6-year-old son Anish Narra were stabbed multiple times in their home. Autopsies performed by Burlington County Medical Examiner Dr. Ian Hood concluded that the pair died from cuts to their necks.

The mystery of their murders is one of many lingering cold cases in Burlington County.

Sasikala and Anish Narra

In the Narra case, the woman’s husband reported to police that he had found the bodies shortly after 9 p.m.

A reward of $25,000 was announced five months after the murders by the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, the FBI and Maple Shade Police.

Bonita ‘Bonnie’ Krummel

Bonita “Bonnie” Krummel of Medford was a married mother of two children when she went missing on January 23, 1991.

A day later, Krummel’s vehicle was recovered from a local library, along with her keys, identification, wallet, credit cards and a wedding ring. Krummel himself has not been seen since.

When Krummel’s car was recovered, a note was discovered inside.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this, but I can’t go on for another minute,” it said. “I love you all. Love, Bonnie.”

Krummel, who was 44, was suffering from Huntington’s disease at the time of her disappearance. Huntington’s disease is a hereditary disease that causes nerve cells in the brain to deteriorate and die.

Medford Township Police Sergeant William Knecht, who has been with the Medford Police Department since 2004, has been on the case since 2009.

“She obviously went missing on January 23, 1991 and nothing since,” Knecht said. ‘No one has ever seen her, no one has ever spoken to her. There have been no financial activities. There has been nothing.

“When she went missing, she was suffering from Huntington’s disease. It is a hereditary condition and affects the nerve disorder. We spoke to doctors and unfortunately Mrs. Krummel could no longer live at this time, simply due to the progression of the disease. I wasn’t there when Mrs. Krummel went missing, but I was given this case when I became a detective and I’ve had it on my desk for a long time. We want nothing more than to give the family some kind of answer.”

Margaretha Vos

Margaret Fox, 14, of Penn Street in Burlington City, and her 11-year-old cousin Lynn Park placed an ad in the newspaper looking for babysitting jobs.

After receiving an answer to a “John Marshall’s” advertisement offering Fox work to care for his 5-year-old son in Mount Holly on June 24, 1974, Fox boarded a morning bus to Mount Holly.

Two witnesses saw her walk off the bus at her destination. One said she spoke to a young man in his 20s who was driving a red sports car.

She was never heard from again.

According to a Courier-Post story, a drifter named Charles Clobridge of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who was in custody for robbery, claimed in late 1975 that he strangled Fox and threw her off a cliff in the mountains in upstate New York. He eventually admitted to lying about the story when authorities determined that Clobridge was in the hospital when Fox disappeared.

On June 24, 2019, the FBI offered a $25,000 reward for the 45^e anniversary of the young girl’s disappearance.

Celina Mays

Celina was 12 years old and nine months pregnant, two weeks after her due date, when she disappeared from her home in Willingboro. She was reported missing on December 16, 1996.

Mays’ mother had died two years earlier and the girl found herself at the heart of a custody battle between her parents’ families.

She lived in a house with about a dozen people and was homeschooled through her family church. Family members said Mays would not release the identity of her baby’s father, the Courier-Post reported.

After the case’s original investigator retired in 2017, another detective began revisiting the case and worked with the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children to take a photo of Celina that progressed in age.

Theresa Maria Caserio

On July 24, 1973, 16-year-old Theresa Maria Caserio was found dead in a bedroom closet of her Willingboro home.

Caserio’s hands and feet were bound with stockings. She had been suffocated by a sock or stocking. According to various media reports, she also suffered between 21 and 50 stab wounds to the chest.

She suffered a punctured lung and had also been hit on the head with a blunt object, reports said.

A Courier-Post story stated that the young lady was staying with a neighbor while her parents were away. She had returned to her house to do chores. She was last seen hanging out the laundry.

Witnesses reported seeing a man with sandy hair, about 6 feet tall and about 40 years old, wearing a light jacket and driving a red car near the victim’s home.

Mildred Santiago

Police found the body of Mildred Santiago, 37, who had been strangled with camouflage tape and bound at the wrists, in an industrial section of Cinnaminson Township on the afternoon of February 1, 1993.

According to the Burlington County website, authorities believed the victim, a prostitute who worked in the Kensington and Alleghany (K&A) section of Philadelphia, was murdered elsewhere and dumped at the South Jersey location.

Carolyn Majane

Carolyn Majane, 15, left her Moorestown residence on August 22, 1975 to catch up with friends.

She later decided to attend a party a short distance away, but failed to attend the event. Majane was last seen alive at approximately 10:15 PM on the above date.

On December 20, 1985, skeletal remains, later identified as those of Majane, were discovered at a construction site in neighboring Mount Laurel Township.

Lorraine ‘Lori’ Rea Herbster

Lorraine “Lori” Rea Herbster, 17, was last seen in Mount Holly on March 9, 1979.

Herbster left her job about 4 p.m. Friday at Microcircuit Corporation on Rancocas Road in Mount Holly, where she had worked as a laboratory technician for about a week. A co-worker gave her a partial ride home. She got out of the vehicle and had about six blocks to walk to her home in Westampton in the Tarnsfield neighborhood.

A witness saw Herbster walking to her house, so the story seemed to rule out her colleague as a suspect. An ex-boyfriend, with whom she had broken up months earlier in December 1978, was questioned by police, but he was acquitted.

Karen Lynn Zendrosky

Karen Lynn Zendrosky, 16, was last seen on October 23, 1979 at a local bowling alley in Bordentown Township.

There were reports that she may have gone to a nearby lagoon with two or three men. Police searched a sludge pit in Hamilton, Mercer County, in 2005 but did not find her remains.

John J. Gilbride

On September 27, 2002, 34-year-old John J. Gilbride of Maple Shade was found dead of gunshot wounds in the front seat of a running 1985 Ford Crown Victoria parked outside his apartment complex.

Police had responded to a call from a resident of Building 300, Ryan’s Run West, Kings Highway, reporting that a motor vehicle with its headlights on had stopped in front of the building. The driver’s side window was shattered and spent shell casings were found on the ground near the vehicle.

Gilbride was a baggage supervisor for US Airways.

Drew Johnson

On August 5, 2006, Johnson, 24, of Willingboro, was found bleeding from the neck after being fatally shot. Police were on site to investigate an accident. They continue to investigate Johnson’s murder.

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