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Donald Mars, of Bedford, pleaded guilty Thursday, May 2, to manslaughter after he was indicted in the 1966 murder of Betty Lou Zukowski, the Hampden County District Attorney said. He will serve two and a half years in prison and two years probation, and he must register as a level-3 sex offender after his release.
“Sadly, Betty Lou’s parents are deceased, and are not able to see Donald Mars answer for the brutality he inflicted upon their daughter," Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said. "While neither solving this case nor any punishment of the perpetrator will give Betty Lou a chance to live the life that she deserved, I hope today represents a significant step for her family in their mourning and how they can memorialize her, so many years later."
Betty Lou left her parent's home on Front Street in Chicopee on May 26, 1966, to visit a friend but never returned.
Her mud-covered, four-foot, seven-inch body was found four days later just off the shore of the Westfield River in West Springfield near Robinson State Park. She had been beaten in the head with a rock and thrown in the water, where she drowned.
Over the years, witnesses and police have circled Mars for the killing but were unable to pin the slaying on him, the prosecutor said.
The Hampden County District Attorney's Unsolved Case Unit reopened the investigation in 2021. They examined evidence collected in 1966 and from interviews with key witnesses in 1997 that linked Mars to the killing.
Those witnesses included Mars' ex-wife and 95-year-old mother who both said Mars had admitted to the killing to them directly.
Police interviewed Mars on July 18, 2022, at a Veteran's Administration Building in Bedford, where the Navy veteran lived. He at first denied any involvement in the killing, saying the 10-year-old "hurt him more than he ever hurt her," the prosecutor said.
He changed his story multiple times until — unprompted — stood and reenacted the killing, slamming his hand down four times, Gulluni said. He began to cry, and when police asked if he had done that to Betty Lou, Mars replied "Yes."
Cousins of Betty Lou thanked the Hampden County district attorney, West Springfield police, and Massachusetts State Police for their dedication and efforts to seek justice even nearly six decades later in letters to the court.
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