WEST MILFORD — Typically a site for rambunctious swimmers and families vacationing over the summer, the lakes of the Highlands have been marked this year by the unusual discoveries of two lifeless bodies.
The bodies, belonging to Cathy Debono and Raymond Pattin, were both recovered in June. Divers found Debono in a car at the bottom of the Monksville Reservoir, and a bystander found Pattin floating near the Greenwood Lake Marina. Although the discoveries are rare, a similar event happened in 2006 after the disappearance and recovery of 57-year-old Linda Bilinski.
Now, after seven years and an investigation that ruled out foul play, West Milford police have released the entire case file detailing the strange coincidences, possible leads and frustrating dead-ends in their two-month search for Bilinski.
Nothing unusual
John Bilinski saw his wife, Linda, as best as someone can, at 5:30 a.m. before leaving for work on a cold Tuesday morning.
When he returned at 5 p.m., the lights were glowing inside and the television was on. The door was locked, but Linda and her car were gone.
Her coat and her purse were still inside.
There was nothing unusual to him or his daughters or their friends in the run up to Jan. 31, 2006, the day John would last see his wife.
“(John) said she had been a little depressed lately, but seemed fine this morning. He said she had never been suicidal,” according to a report by Patrolman Dennis O’Donnell, who met with the family at 6:30 that evening.
Like everybody, Linda Bilinski had a routine.
She didn’t go out much. She liked to go shopping occasionally at stores in Wayne, where her daughter Donna lived. She babysat her grandson in Wayne every Wednesday.
But her Wednesday routine was broken Feb. 1, when Linda Bilinski’s two adult daughters spent the day looking for their mother’s car at ShopRite, then at Frank’s and then the A&P.
After four days with no sign of Linda Bilinski or her charcoal gray Honda Accord, the state police conducted a helicopter flyover of the area with assistance from West Milford Search and Rescue.
State Police Helio #5 began its search of areas around Green Turtle Pond, Burch Hill, Awosting, and Jungle Habitat at 11:55 a.m. Feb. 5, when ice still covered parts of the lake. The aerial survey lasted 26 minutes before the team onboard reported finding nothing. The helicopter then briefly broke away to respond to a medevac call.
Several officers checked and double checked areas on foot, including Dave Mann of the State Parks Police. Mann arrived at Green Turtle Pond a little after 1 p.m. and searched the area for roughly 25 minutes.
Five minutes after Mann gave the ‘all clear,’ the helicopter finished its medevac mission and resumed the search. At 3:25 p.m., the search ended with no sign of Bilinski.
Health watch
Linda had a history of health problems: She suffered from the autoimmune disease, Lupus; she had sustained a stroke and she walked with a cane.
The night before her disappearance, John Bilinski said Linda was ‘high’ on pain medication when he came home, according to police reports.
When police contacted Bilinski’s health insurer to see if she might have refilled her prescriptions, the company reported she last used her benefit card on Dec. 31, 2005.
They checked St. Anthony's, Good Samaritan, Chilton Memorial, Dover General, Morristown Memorial, St. Joseph's, Wayne General, Valley and St. Mary's hospitals.
After interviews with neighbors, friends and family, police contacted credit rating agencies to check activity on her cards.
Nothing.
Hyper-vigilance
The day after the flyover, West Milford Detective Robert Congleton reported a loose end that seemed to stand out.
During an interview, John Bilinski said his daughter found a Christmas card addressed to Linda from a male friend of hers named John Kenney. John Bilinski thought he might be from Hawthorne.
“Linda met John Kenney while she was having problems with her husband. It is unsure at this time when she first met Mr. Kenney,“ according to the report.
Congleton contacted the Hawthorne Police Department, and received several names of individuals named Kenney on the department’s computer. He then contacted a Sean Kenney who resides in Hawthorne, and to whom all the other Kenneys on the list were related.
But Sean didn’t know anyone named John Kenney.
The next week, Bilinski’s son-in-law heard about a drugstore customer who may have seen Linda picking up her prescriptions.
The witness, Glenn Greff, said he saw someone resembling Linda Bilinski at the counter when he was at the store to buy a pack of cigarettes.
“The woman was wearing glasses and she took them off a number of times and was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. She was purchasing a number of items which included various soaps and shampoo,” according to the report.
Police used the timestamp on Greff’s receipt to review a DVD provided by the store.
John Bilinski watched the video carefully right to the end, according to police. But, the woman’s hair was too long. The clothes weren’t right. It wasn’t Linda.
Events that may have seemed just unusual began to be seen as suspicious by those aware of the case.
Wayne resident Lou Verlardi said he saw a woman who looked like Linda Bilinski on Feb. 6. The woman appeared to be yelling at someone in her car, but there were no other passengers inside.
Three days later, Ted Howard of Kinnelon said he heard a woman screaming in the woods.
On Feb. 21 there was a possible hit on Linda Bilinski’s vehicle by police running the registration in Arlington, Texas. On the 27th, there was another potential hit in Dover Township, as there was on March 27 in Hartford, Conn.
Don Donkervoet, Linda Bilinski's brother, reported receiving a strange phone call from Cleveland that his wife couldn’t reach in time.
“Numerous attempts to identify the owner of the phone number were unsuccessful,” according to a March 3 report from Det. Lt. Peter. Van Gilst.
Perhaps the most puzzling was the cross-check of a database at the FBI’s Offline Search Division, which showed that an unknown officer ran a check on Linda Bilinski’s New Jersey license plate two days after she disappeared.
The leads were mostly dead ends.
Looking into John
After weeks spent searching and not finding, police turned to Linda Bilinski’s husband John for more information.
Though he was never considered a suspect in the case, police on March 3 asked John Bilinski to submit to a polygraph test. He agreed.
Detective Scott Heath of the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office administered the test on March 10, and the results were inconclusive, according to reports. Nevertheless, police executed a search warrant five days later at the Bilinskis’ apartment.
“The purpose of the warrant was for the (County) CSI Unit to process the apartment for any evidence of violence or foul play,” according to a police summary. Though the search of the home yielded nothing new, the warrant also covered the seizure of John and Linda's personal computer for further investigation.
Also in March, police finally tracked down John Kenney, the man who sent the Christmas card.
Kenney had been living in Hamburg until October, 2005, when he relocated to the Pump Handle Motel in Rockford, Ill.
An officer with the Rockford Police interviewed Kenney about Linda’s disappearance. Kenney said that he hadn't seen or spoken to Linda since 2003.
Detective Congleton spoke with the Pump Handle Motel’s manager, who said Kenney “had a drinking problem and walks wherever he goes.” He also said Kenney came alone to the hotel and has had no friends from out of town stopping to visit.
Triple check
Three months after the day of her disappearance, police reordered a state helicopter to canvas the area, and this time they spotted something.
After State Helio #5 and a State Parks Police Officer Mann searched Green Turtle Pond in February, a third review by a second helicopter team revealed a car resting at the bottom of the pond.
The submerged sedan sat at the bottom of the pond 100 feet from the boat launch.
“Divers were able to confirm that the vehicle was Linda Bilinski's missing Honda Accord bearing NJ (registration) HT6203,”according to reports. “The vehicle containing the body of Linda Bilinski was subsequently pulled from the pond.”
Finally in April, West Milford Police announced confirmation that the body belonged to Bilinski.
“While the boat launch area and Green Turtle Pond were searched numerous times early in the investigation, conditions such as ice or a higher water level may have hampered observation from the air. The vehicle could not be seen from the shore or the boat launch,” according to a press release.
Following the medical examiner's autopsy of the body, police ended their inquiries into John Bilinski and John Kenney.
“It does appear at this time that there is no evidence of foul play involved.”