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Known for her generous volunteer work, Gertrude Bizarro, 72, was the matriarch of her family and the de facto grandmother of her Dutch Hill neighborhood, a row of two-story homes near the Passaic border.
She was "all-around great woman loved by many," recalled Clifton Police Detective Lt. Robert Bracken, who knew her.
Twenty years ago this Saturday, Bizarro's husband took their youngest daughter to a hair appointment in anticipation of a Christmas gathering intended to reunite far-flung family members. They returned, they said, to find Bizarro's bloodied body in the kitchen of the lime-green corner house on Sisco Place at Gregory Avenue.
She'd been stabbed in the neck and chest, a coroner later said.
Twenty Christmases have passed since Dec. 18, 2001, and Clifton police are still giving the unsolved case all they can. An indication of how badly they want it is a $10,000 reward for information that simply leads to an arrest -- unlike most rewards, a conviction isn't even necessary.
The detectives have received help from the FBI, the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, the Passaic County sheriff's forensics unit and police in surrounding towns. They've interviewed more than 200 people -- witnesses and potential suspects alike -- while chatting up ex-cons and others "familiar to police" on the street in the hopes that one of them holds the key to cracking the case.
They've also placed hope in scientific advances: After all, DNA can be successfully lifted from a single cell. Even with the erosion of evidence over time, they just might get a hit.
Time is the biggest enemy of a stone-cold case. Suspects and witnesses die. Others move. The memories of those who remain can grow dim or distorted. What a detective finds and can prove are often not the same. It's painstaking work, but the payoff is immense when it clicks.
Born in Passaic, Gertrude T. Boeglen was a clerk and proofreader for the Passaic County Register of Deeds in Paterson for 16 years before retiring in 1999. She was a member of Regina Mundi Columbiettes, president of American Legion Auxiliary Post 77 in Paterson and a past president of the Passaic County American Legion Auxiliary.
Besides her husband, Chet, and daughter, June, she left another daughter, two sons and six grandchildren.
How could she be so callously killed?
For all her gentle kindness, Gertrude was also a tough cookie. She beat cancer not once but twice and held diabetes at bay. She once even fought off a purse snatcher, according to police.
Maybe she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, detectives say. Maybe she confronted a burglar who thought the house was empty after her husband and daughter drove off.
A group of drug-using teens had been breaking into homes on Dutch Hill -- perhaps one or more of them were responsible, investigators have said.
Amid the hypotheticals, one thing is certain: Twenty years down the road, investigators aren't giving up on the case. Gertrude's survivors deserve it and justice demands it, they say.
"It's going to happen," Bracken said. "It's a matter of when -- not if."
Anyone with information that could help them is asked to contact the Clifton Police Detective Bureau: (973) 470-5908.
The Passaic County Prosecutor's Office also offers an anonymous tips line at 1-877-370-PCPO or tips@passaiccountynj.org.
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