WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES DECEMBER 12, 2019 31
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
grew to a cold-blooded slaughter
Miss Barbera, who had been working
for the Camera Service Center at 645
West 54th St., left work at about 5:30 p.m.
Monday, April 12.
Her car, a blue late model BMW, was
parked in a lot on the roof of Pier 92 at
the Hudson River and 54th Street. James
T. Sullivan, the city’s Chief of Detectives,
said the police believed the killer was in a
white van parked next to Miss Barbera’s
car when she arrived at about 6 p.m.
Chief Sullivan said the three CBS employees
— Edward M. Benford, 59, Leo
A. Kuranuki, 54, and Robert W. Schulze,
58 — might have seen the gunman shoot
Miss Barbera or try to force her into his
van.W
hen the men, who were in the lot
to get their cars, intervened, the killer
fatally shot each of them, Chief Sullivan
said.
“They came forward selfl essly and did
try to assist Miss Barbera,” the Chief said
at Police Headquarters. “They acted
heroically. Unfortunately, it had tragic
results.”
The killer was described by witnesses
as a man in his 30s. Chief Sullivan said
ballistics tests showed that the three CBS
employees had been killed by bullets fi red
from a .22-caliber gun.
Miss Barbera’s body was found about
three miles from the parking lot. Chief
Sullivan said she had been killed by a
single shot from a small-caliber weapon,
probably a .22-caliber gun.
For 17 years, Miss Barbera had lived in
a fourth-fl oor apartment in Ridgewood.
The building superintendent, Joseph
Clundt, said she had recently told him
that “someone was aft er her.”
Mr. Clundt said that in the last year,
she had put metal bars on her windows,
changed the lock on her front door and
installed a burglar alarm in her car. Miss
Barbera, who was about fi ve feet tall and
wore glasses, also told Clundt that she
was taking karate lessons.
Another mystery in the murder case is
the disappearance of Mrs. Chin, who was
a bookkeeper at the Candor Company
and lived at 631 Cumberland Ave. in
Teaneck, N.J.
Sgt. Richard Ruffi no of the Bergen
County Sheriff ’s Department said Mrs.
Chin, who is 46, visited Miss Barbera in
Ridgewood on Jan. 5 and had spent the
night there.
On the night of Jan. 6, according to
Sergeant Ruffi no, Mrs. Chin was seen
near Miss Barbera’s apartment, being
pushed into her red 1978 station wagon
by a ski-masked man. Her bloodstained
car was found a week later in Manhattan
on 36th Street, between 10th and 11th
avenues.
Chief Sullivan said a .22-caliber shell
casing found in Mrs. Chin’s car apparently
matched the shell casings from the
gun that killed the three CBS employees.
No shell casing was found near Miss
Barbera’s body.
Less than a week aft er the murders
of Barbera and the three CBS employees,
police in Kentucky picked up Nash
(using the Bowers alias) as he drove a
stolen minivan. Though initially identifi
ed as a getaway driver connected to
the murders, an investigation would
ultimately reveal that Nash acted alone,
on Margulies’ orders.
Nash, who lived in Keansburg, New
Jersey, had a lengthy rap sheet before
the murders. His record included a
1952 larceny conviction that got him
a three-year sentence; a 1962 larceny
conviction that carried a nine-month
sentence, and numerous other arrests
in New York and New Jersey.
According to a report in the April
29, 1982, Ridgewood Times, FBI agents
had been tailing Bowers in hopes that
he would lead them to the killer, when a
routine check at a Kentucky roadblock
led to Bowers’ arrest. Bowers had been
convicted March 24 on charges of possession
of a forged taxi license, and had
failed to surrender on April 13 to begin
serving a 22-day sentence.
When police arrested Bowers, he was
driving a van that had been painted
black over its original white or off -white;
a witness to the slayings told police the
killer fl ed in a white van.
Bowers was also carrying a New York
driver’s license giving his name as Donald
Nash and his address as Keansburg,
New Jersey. Police sources said Bowers
has used the alias of Nash for about 20
years.
The investigation revealed that
Margulies, who was convicted in 1982
for fraudulent activities, reached out
to Nash and arranged to have Barbera
and Chin murdered. It was reported
that Nash asked for and received
$8,000 per killing.
Nash was charged with four counts of
murder, and a fi ft h count of conspiracy
to commit murder. That fi ft h count represented
the presumed killing of Chin,
whose body was never recovered following
her Jan. 6, 1982, disappearance
near Barbera’s Ridgewood home.
Margolies was sentenced to a 28-year
prison term on Dec. 15, 1982, for his
fraud conviction. Prior to his sentencing,
then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Ira
Block claimed in court that Margolies
ordered the hits against Barbera and
Chin, though up to that point, no formal
charges had been fi led against him.
Nash’s trial took place over the
course of seven weeks in the spring
of 1983 in Manhattan Criminal Court.
The case was prosecuted under the supervision
of then-Manhattan District
Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
Without any eyewitness testimony,
The New York Times reported, the
prosecution relied upon a mountain of
circumstantial and scientifi c evidence
to make their case against Nash. The
prosecution called 127 witnesses and
presented 380 exhibits of evidence, including
ballistics reports and a record
of a phone call from Nash’s home phone
to Barbera’s unlisted number, which
took place about six weeks before her
murder.
It took the jury of nine men and three
women all of 13 hours of deliberation to
render a guilty verdict against Nash on
all fi ve counts. He was later sentenced
to a cumulative prison term of 100
years.
Nash’s evil streak continued even behind
bars. In 1994, he was charged with
brutally murdering a fellow inmate at
the Auburn Correctional Facility, taking
his life with a large board equipped
with razor blades. Nash would die in
prison in 2006.
As for Margolies, he would later be
charged and convicted for his role in
the killings and be ordered to serve 50
years behind bars.
Sources: The New York Times, AP, the
University of Virginia Law School and
the Ridgewood Times.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood: The
Way It Was” that you would like to share
with our readers, please write to the Old
Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell
Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send an email
to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com. Any
print photographs mailed to us will be
carefully returned to you upon request.
The apartment building on Grandview Avenue where Margaret Barbera
lived is shown in this 2017 photo. Photo via PropertyShark/Christopher Bride
Donald Nash was convicted of the
murders of Barbera and the three
CBS employees.
Photo via My Life of Crime blog
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