It was a crime that rocked the local community. Forty years ago, two teenage girls left their homes in North Bergen for a routine trip to the mall. Five days later, their bodies were found in a wooded area near the New York border. Their murderer was never caught, although theories abound concerning his identity.
Mary Ann Pryor, 17, of Second Avenue, and Lorraine Mary Kelly, 16, of 71st Street, were heading to the Garden State Plaza Mall on Aug. 9, 1974. Pryor was wearing bell bottom pants with patches and a halter top. Kelly wore a white short-sleeve shirt, brown corduroy pants, clogs, a beaded bracelet, and a necklace with the inscription, “Lorraine and Ricky.”
Just two typical North Bergen High School girls out for an afternoon of fun in the early 1970s. They were dropped off at a bus stop in Ridgefield by Kelly’s boyfriend at about 4:30 in the afternoon.
It was the last time anyone recalled seeing them alive.
Rather than take the bus, police theorize that the two best friends hitchhiked a ride. Both were known as regular hitchhikers.
Their bodies were found on Aug. 14 in Montvale in a wooded region behind Rolling Ridge Road. The bodies were badly decomposed and showed signs of having been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled.
Nancy Pryor, 19, identified her sister’s body, in part by the gold necklace she wore bearing a small cross.
Innocence lost
“I remember it was all over the papers,” said Freeholder-Elect Anthony Vainieri, whose father was the police commissioner at the time. “It was on the network news on TV.”
“I had just moved into the neighborhood,” recalled Mayor Nicholas Sacco. “I had just been elected as the Democratic committee member representing that district. I was called by then-Commissioner Vainieri. He, of course, owned the Vainieri Funeral Home and he asked me to go to the [Kelly] house. And he offered them, because they didn’t have any money, free funeral services. So I gave them that message. It was really heartbreaking.”
Pryor was survived by her parents, James and Wanda, and sister Nancy. Kelly was survived by her sister Maureen and brothers Thomas and John. Her parents had already died.
Reldan cannot be implicated because he was in prison at the time of the murders.
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A s a result of the incident, “There was a big police crackdown on hitchhikers,” recalled Vainieri, who was 11 at the time, with three older teenage sisters. “Back then, the early ’70s, hitchhiking was a big thing. I can remember seeing hitchhikers on the Boulevard with their thumbs out. My father put out a mandatory ruling. The cops were ordered to crack down on everybody. If you were caught, you were brought in and they would call your parents.”
The seemingly random crime shocked the community.
“Back then you had your door open,” said Vainieri. “Now you can’t do that. It’s a shame.”
Suspect behind bars?
There was a second part to the message that Sacco delivered the Kelly family when he visited them back in 1974. “I told them that they were going to continue this investigation until they resolve it,” said Sacco. “The fact that it never was resolved is very disturbing. Today, DNA would have been so very important. But it’s become a very cold case.”
Internet commenters have speculated that the murderer, while never convicted of this crime, is in fact already serving time for two similar murders.
Five years after the North Bergen girls were killed, Tenafly resident Robert Reldan was found guilty of the murders of Susan Reeve of Demarest and Susan Heynes of Haworth – the “Susan Murders,” according to newspapers at the time – while he was already on parole for an earlier crime. Both victims were found nude and strangled in wooded areas. At least one of the victims showed evidence of forced sexual penetration. The other body was too badly decomposed to determine the nature of sexual assault. Reldan had a prior record.
However, there’s one problem with linking the two sets of deaths: Reldan was in prison in Trenton from Feb. 14, 1972 until May 30, 1975, when the North Bergen murders occurred.
He was arrested for the “Susan Murders” and, despite several escape attempts – one of them briefly successful when he sprayed an officer with tear gas during his 1979 trial and stole an automobile – Reldan became eligible for parole in 2008. His request was denied and Reldan, 74, remains behind bars at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.
The possibility has also been raised that Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly were the first two victims in a rape and murder spree that lasted from August 1974 to October 1975. Eight girls between the ages of 14 and 22 from Northern New Jersey and Delaware were murdered during that time, six of them strangled and two shot.
The Kelly and Pryor murders are still listed as “unsolved cases” by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, who investigated the incident. Maureen Parenta, public information officer for the prosecutor’s office, declined to provide any further details when asked recently, stating, “This case remains a priority case within our cold case unit in Homicide. We continue to work on it today. We do not disclose details of investigations until charges are brought.”
The sister of one of the victims, who has posted comments on the internet before, did not respond to emails sent to her.
Anyone with any information on the case is urged to contact the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office at (201) 226-5658.
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.