Darlings, for those of us of a certain age, raised in this small New Jersey town, this day back in 1965--that is now 47 years!!!!!--marked in some ways one of the benchmark signs ending our innocence.
On that Saturday afternoon, back then, Ann Rubenstein, 41, and her daughter Mae, 11, were found murdered in their home at 437 South Third Avenue. As I recall, I was in the fourth grade--the year of Norma Brodsky--and it was a big deal!!!!!!!!!!!!
And remains such, because, to this day, it has never been conclusively solved! A New Jersey news website--NJ.com--I believe--last year did a story on famous cold cases throughout the state, of which this is one of the more prominent.
The way things went, so we have been told, was this.
Mrs. Rubenstein's husband and son were working in town that day at the Star Lumber Company. She had gone out to do grocery shopping, and her 11-year-old daughter, Mae, a sixth grader at Lafayette School, was home by herself, and talking on the phone to a friend. Theirs was a two family house, and they were on the first floor. There was a small foyer, leading in, so I understood, and when the daughter heard the door open, she said, "I have to go, now; I hear my mother coming." Which there was no reason for her not to think otherwise. But whomever she opened the door to, turned out to be the attacker, who stabbed her multiple times with a long bladed kitchen knife. Apparently, the attacker, sensing others were out, but might return, hid, and so, when Ann Rubenstein entered, and found her daughter, slain and bleeding on the floor, she confronted the attacker, with unfortunately also fatal results!!!!!!!!
The upstairs neighbor later said she heard noises downstairs. Things really developed, when Mrs. Rubenstein's nephew, Maurice Feller, also in 4th grade (and later a high school classmate of mine) went in to the house, a common practice, to get a drink of water. He saw the bodies, and went upstairs, saying something, so I recall, about his aunt, having "fallen down." The neighbor went, grasped the situation, and called the police.
Now, I did not hear this till the next morning, which also happened to be Valentine's Day. I had arisen early, as was my habit, to watch, most likely, "Davey and Goliath" on TV. Our telephone rang, surprisingly early. I answered, and a maniacal voice said, "This is a murderer!!!!!!!" Of course, I was scared. But it just turned out to be my Uncle Tom, married to my father's sister, Aunt Agnes. They lived one town over from us, in Edison, and he had seen the story in the local paper. I got my father up, we retrieved the paper, and, over the breakfast table, all read the horrifying story.
"It really changed the innocence of Highland Park," said Rubenstein's niece (and, I believe, Maurice's sister, Aviva LaGrasse). Indeed, it did. Murder was something we heard about happening in far off places like Newark, or over the Hudson, in New York City. By fourth grade, with TV and radio, I had come to expect that. But in Highland Park??????? A sleepy little town???????? This was unheard of, and my parents had a time quelling my hysteria. If murder, I thought, could happen in this town, it could happen anywhere, and who was safe?????????
Of course, I got over this. But the actuality of never being completely safe can be traced back to this day and incident.
To this day, it remains unsolved. And there was never a murder weapon found. As late (or as far back) as when I was still living in Highland Park, in the early 1980s, nearly twenty years later, two theories were popular.
The first was it was a "hit" on the Rubenstein family. Especially, with no sexual trauma to the bodies, or signs of a robbery--there was over $100, then a considerable sum, in the house--this seemed likely. But the word that got out was that whomever got the wrong family; that there was s family similarly named on North Fourth Avenue, and they were the intended targets.
The other, more enigmatic theory, is that it is known who did it, but the records are sealed, as said perp was/is mentally ill, and was shortly thereafter institutionalized. This would be great if more could be found out, but it never was.
As such, this sounds more like an outtake from John Carpenter's "Halloween."
With almost 50 years having gone by, I doubt if the answer will ever be known, though so many of us out there would like to know. Still, when this date rolls around each year, I remember this incident well.
Remember, girls, only on TV is murder exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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