Richard Fran Biegenwald (August 24, 1940 – March 10, 2008) was an American serial killer and arsonist who murdered six people, four women and two men, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, between 1958 and 1983.

[1] At the age of five, Biegenwald set fire to their home[1][2] and was sent for observation at a Rockland County Psychiatric Center.

[1] There, on December 18, 1958, Biegenwald robbed a grocery store with accomplice Frank Spardoff, shooting and killing the proprietor, Stephen Sladowski, an attorney and prosecutor.

[2][4] Biegenwald fled the state after the murder, but was captured two days later in Salisbury, Maryland, after a shooting involving police.

Her body was found in January 1983 by children playing in a wooded lot behind a Burger King on Route 35 and Sunset Avenue, fully clothed with no signs of sexual assault and with four bullets in her head.

One involved the shooting death of John Petrone, an ex–convict and sometimes police informer, unearthed—minus his jawbone—on a remote New Jersey wildlife preserve.

Police confiscated several pipe bombs, handguns, rifles, shotguns, a machine gun, Rohypnol, chloral hydrate, marijuana, a live puff adder, venom collecting apparatus, and floor plans for several area notable residences and businesses.

[1] During questioning, Fitzgerald told police of a third body, that of a young woman, that Biegenwald had shown him hidden in his garage.

Fitzgerald told police that he helped Biegenwald transport another body to his mother's house in Staten Island and bury it in the basement.

As the investigation went on, police located a ninth victim, William Ward, who was buried in a shallow grave in Neptune City, New Jersey.