Edgar Herbert Smith Jr. (1934 – 2017) was an American convicted murderer sentenced to death for his 1957 killing of 15-year-old Victoria Ann Zielinski in Ramsey, New Jersey. On death row, Smith began corresponding with conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., and gradually persuaded Buckley that he was innocent. With the help of an elite legal team retained by Buckley, Smith litigated his conviction through multiple court hearings and wrote a book proclaiming his innocence. In 1971, a federal judge vacated Smith's conviction and ordered a retrial. Smith then took a plea deal to time-served, resulting in his 1971 release. Five years later, Smith abducted and tried to kill another woman in San Diego, California. The victim survived and testified against him in court. During that proceeding Smith admitted killing Zielinski in 1957. He was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2017 at age 83.
Murder of Vickie Zielinski
Shortly after 8:30 pm on the evening of March 4, 1957 15-year-old Victoria Ann Zielinski of Ramsey, New Jersey, disappeared while walking home from a friend's house. "Vickie" was an honor student and cheerleader at Ramsey High School. The following morning her parents, searching for their missing daughter, found one of her black penny loafers and a grey scarf near the entrance to a sand pit at the intersection of Fardale Avenue and Chapel Road not far from their house. Mrs. Zielinski called the police while Mr. Zielinski continued the search. Up the dirt road to the sand pit Mr. Zielinski observed Vickie's red gloves. He returned to the intersection and with Mrs. Zielinski waited for police. The police arrived promptly and Mahwah Police Department's Captain Ed Wickham and Mr. Zielinski entered the sand pit.
In 1957, Fardale Avenue ended at Chapel Road, and a dirt road continued about 200 feet into a sand pit. The two men found Vickie's body at the bottom of a bank in the sand pit where it was not visible from the road. Blunt force trauma had mangled the girl's face and skull. At trial the coroner testified that the cause of death was "total crushing of the skull with a decerebration, traumatic." Vickie's dungarees remained fastened but her sweater was pushed up and her brassier pulled down, and there was a human bite mark on her right breast. A sizable blood-stained rock, consistent with the wounds, was recovered not far from her body, and her brains were scattered nearby. A careful search revealed a clump of Vickie's hair, with blood, and a hair pin near the entrance to the sandpit, and a baseball bat stained with blood in the woods nearby. Bergen County Prosecutor Guy W. Calissi describing the killing as the "most vicious, most brutal and the most sadistic I have ever seen."
On the night of the murder, 23-year-old Edgar Smith, who lived a short distance from the sand pit, was using a light-blue, 1950 Mercury sedan borrowed from his friend Joseph Gilroy. Gilroy kept baseball bats and gloves in the car. After the murder was reported, Gilroy noted blood stains in his car and contacted police. Smith was brought in for questioning. His statement was recorded and under oath.
Smith was 23-years-old, married, and had a child. He told police that he knew Victoria Zielinski and had given her rides home from Ramsey High School. He admitted picking her up in Gilroy's Mercury on the evening of March 4 at about 8:35 pm upon seeing her walking toward her home. He claimed that she flagged him down and asked him for a ride. Once in the car, Smith stated that after Vickie directed him to drive around the block, he decided to park in the sand pit. Smith said that at the sand pit Vickie began getting out of the car, saying that she was going to walk home and tell her father that he was "like the rest of the guys." Smith stated that he leaned over from the driver's seat and grabbed her arm to keep her in the car so he could drive her home. She pulled against him trying to get out, and pulled him out the passenger door. Outside the car she yelled at him and slapped him, and he recalled swinging at her with his right hand as hard as he could. After that Smith claimed he could not remember what happened, but thought there was "running" at some point before he got back in the car alone and drove home. Smith brought officers to locations where he had discarded his blood-stained shoes (in a trashcan outside an apartment building) and Vickie's pocketbook and school books (recovered a distance off the side of a road). Officers found Smith's bloodstained pants in a brushy area about 50 feet off a different road. He said he had washed his jacket. Smith claimed to be unable to remember killing Vickie, but conceded that, "I must have been the one who really did it."