Barnett “Barry” Zeldin: missing in the Burlington County pines since 2013

What the case record establishes

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) lists Barnett D. Zeldin, nicknamed Barry, as missing from October 7, 2013. The record was created on October 16, 2013 and last modified on August 1, 2024. The investigating agency is the New Jersey State Police Missing Persons Unit, under agency case number C120-2013-00316, reported the same day he went missing. NamUs computes his age at the time as 74.

The published circumstances read, in full: “Missing from Wharton Forest Park in Bass River Township since 10/07/2013. He was there planning to bait his tree stand in preparation for deer hunting season. His 1992 Chevy Blazer was found on the side of the road, with the windows down, dog inside, and the keys in the ignition. His cell phone and wallet were in the car.” A second public note on the same record says he “went hunting in the penn state forest and never returned to vehicle park in closed proximity of hunting stand.”

The record describes a white man of about 5 ft. 7 in. and 150 to 155 pounds. He was believed to be wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a flannel shirt, colors unrecorded, and dirty white tennis shoes that he may have changed for hunting boots. He wore a gold wedding band and a gold chain carrying a gold marlin charm and a gold soft-pretzel charm.

The case is flagged unresolved. Anyone with information is asked to contact the New Jersey State Police Missing Persons Unit, PO Box 7068, West Trenton, NJ 08628, on 609-882-2000 or at missingp@gw.njsp.org, quoting NamUs case MP22276 or NJSP case C120-2013-00316. The detective listed on the NamUs record as the agency contact is Stephen Urbanski; the telephone number and address above are the unit’s published ones rather than his personal details, which the record withholds.

Where, exactly, is not settled

The case record does not agree with itself about the location, and no other source was opened for this entry that could resolve it. Its circumstances field names “Wharton Forest Park in Bass River Township” — but Bass River Township lies well east of Wharton State Forest and contains Bass River State Forest instead. The separate public note names Penn State Forest, which is roughly twelve miles north of Bass River Township, in Woodland and Washington townships. The generalized public coordinate NamUs itself publishes for the case sits in Washington Township, Burlington County, roughly midway between the two. All three descriptions are Burlington County, and all three are in the pines; beyond that, the record will not support a narrower statement of where he was last seen.

This entry’s file name, retained from an earlier draft, refers to Warren Grove. That name does not appear anywhere in the case record. Warren Grove is a locality in Ocean County, and the association comes from unofficial discussion rather than from the official file; it should not be read as a finding.

What is not established here

The NamUs record gives no street address for where the Blazer was recovered, describes no search operations, and lists no dental, DNA or fingerprint records as being on file. It reports no recovery, no arrest and no named person of interest. Specifics repeated in online discussion — an exact road name for the vehicle, or the scale and organization of any volunteer searches — are not corroborated by the record and are left out rather than asserted. No family member is named here, because the record names none.

A separate Pine Barrens case, the same year

This archive also carries an entry on an unidentified man found in the Stafford Forge Wildlife Management Area, Eagleswood Township, on December 19, 2013 (see “Unidentified man found at Stafford Forge (2013)”). The two cases share only a year and a region. They are not in the same forest — Stafford Forge is in Ocean County, and the Zeldin record points to Burlington County — and they are opposite kinds of case: one is a named man who disappeared and has never been found, the other a recovered body that has never been named. Nothing in either record connects them, and they should not be conflated.