Barry Zeldin: the Warren Grove search and a conflicting case map

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.

Reconstructing the Warren Grove search

A CBS Philadelphia interview published October 15, 2013 says Zeldin signed in at the Audubon Gun Club on Route 563 at 9:55 a.m. October 7. The club president said he and other members found Zeldin’s vehicle on Saturday, October 12, after his wife visited the club. CBS reported a State Police and State Park Police search with helicopters and dogs through Sunday and a subsequent Burlington County K-9 volunteer effort. This documents the sequence and who might have kept contemporaneous location records; it does not establish his route after the club sign-in.

An October 18–19 Philadelphia Inquirer report specifically places the vehicle on Beaver Dam Road in Warren Grove, with his keys, phone and dog inside. An October 14 CBS/AP account attributes the broader Warren Grove Recreation Area, Burlington County side to State Police. The New Jersey park map shows Beaver Dam Road running through that recreation area, which spans the county line. The newspaper road name narrows the lead considerably, but none of these sources gives a vehicle recovery coordinate, tree-stand position or verified search-grid boundary.

Why the case map conflicts

NamUs calls the place “Wharton Forest Park in Bass River Township” in one field, “penn state forest” in another, and publishes a generalized point in Washington Township. The first label combines a forest and township that do not match; the second is a different forest. The contemporaneous reports independently place the search at Warren Grove. The NamUs fields should therefore be treated as unresolved data-quality issues, not as three equally likely search origins. The map on this site marks the Warren Grove area, with an uncertainty radius; it does not mark Zeldin’s vehicle or stand.

Records that could sharpen the location

1. Vehicle recovery record: a scene diagram, contemporaneous GPS reading, dispatch location or recovery photograph could settle the exact road segment and the conflicting road labels in later retellings.
2. Club and stand records: the October 7 sign-in entry, any club map or contemporary stand photograph could distinguish the club from the separate deer stand he intended to bait.
3. Search coverage: 2013 State Police, park police and volunteer search maps or GPS tracks could show which sectors were actually searched and by which method. A general claim that “the area was searched” cannot substitute for those boundaries.

Those are documentary leads for the investigating agency and case researchers. The public record does not identify an unsearched patch of forest or justify a precise public search pin. Anyone with firsthand information or a possible discovery should use the New Jersey State Police Missing Persons Unit contact rather than post a location publicly.

What is not established here

The reviewed sources do not establish Zeldin’s movements after the club sign-in, the exact vehicle site, the stand site, why he left the vehicle, or the boundaries of completed searches. No recovered remains or confirmed person of interest is reported in them. The 2013 interviews and current case-record fields answer different questions; neither should be used to invent a route through the woods.

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. The cases share a year and a wider region. No inspected record connects them, and geographic proximity alone cannot establish a match.