Seventeen-year-old Virginia Clayton, a white female, was abducted from Freehold Township, New Jersey on September 8, 1982. Her body was found three days later in a wildlife refuge about four miles from where another victim had been located earlier, a proximity that prompted investigators to investigate possible links between the cases.

Richard Biegenwald, later labelled the Thrill Killer, became the prime suspect because aspects of Virginia’s killing resembled his known crimes. He was arrested on January 22, 1983 in Asbury Park; police searching his home found weapons and illegal drugs. An associate, Dherran Fitzgerald, cooperated with authorities and helped lead police to multiple bodies, including young women buried in the basement of Biegenwald’s mother’s house in Staten Island. Biegenwald was charged and convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and later died in prison on March 10, 2008.

No formal charge was filed in Virginia Clayton’s death, and the case remains officially unresolved in the courts. Did anyone in the area know Virginia’s routine or notice anyone suspicious around Freehold Township in early September 1982?