John P. Petrone, 57, of Brielle, New Jersey, was shot to death in June 1978; surviving accounts generally place the killing in June 1978 with June 1 sometimes cited but not confirmed. Reports say he was shot at or near an abandoned airfield in the Flemington area, yet his body was not recovered until May 11, 1983, when a skeleton—missing a jawbone—was unearthed in a remote wooded part of Jackson Township, later identified as Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area.

Investigators later linked the recovery to a broader homicide probe centered on Richard Fran Biegenwald, a convicted killer who emerged as the principal publicly identified suspect in Petrone’s death. Authorities never filed a murder charge against Biegenwald for Petrone; prosecutors concluded they lacked sufficient evidence to take that homicide to court. No other person was publicly prosecuted for the killing, and no proven motive is recorded.

Did anyone know Petrone’s movements in June 1978 or have information about the abandoned Flemington airfield that could clarify where he was shot and what followed?