The claim is that time heals all wounds. But the experience has been different for Oneonta real estate agent Suzanne Darling, who said the anguish has not receded in the three decades that have passed since she and her family were informed that her kid brother, Robert Darling Jr., had been found shot to death.
“It was the first funeral I ever attended,” Suzanne Darling, a native of the Fulton County community of Gloversville, recalled Monday. “Not knowing what happened has been very hard on the whole family.”
Her brother, she said, was just 21 years old at the time of his death. She readily admitted he had fallen in with a bad crowd and, as young people sometimes do, had made some terrible decisions, among them getting involved with illegal drugs.
She said she suspects that his involvement in the drug trade could explain why he was shot execution-style in a remote spot in Benson, Hamilton County, and why no one has stepped forward to this day to give police information that could help solve the case.
Suzanne Darling, born two years ahead of her brother and one of four children in her family, said she has been in touch with New York State Police investigators, hoping that their fresh look will bring Robert Darling’s killer to justice.
In the annals of unsolved crimes, it is now considered a cold case, although the investigation remains active, police said.
“There is no statute of limitations for murder, and we continue to work on it,” State Police Investigator Darryl Bazan said. The detectives who originally worked on the investigation retired years ago, he said, but their notes and files remain available, as does whatever physical evidence was collected at the time, he said.
In the 30 years that have passed since Robert Darling went missing in August 1984, the science of criminal forensics has improved markedly, as have evidence collection and other crime scene techniques, he noted.
Bazan was not yet a trooper when this reporter, then working for an Albany newspaper, ventured into Gloversville in November 1984 for interviews with acquaintances of the murder victim, including a young man who was his roommate at the time. “I just hope they find the dudes who did it to him,” Todd Kenyon, Robert Darling’s roommate, said in that interview. He further noted that Robert Darling had been seen on what was his final night with two men from the Schenectady area.
Robert Darling, authorities said then, was one of 14 people named in a sealed indictment growing out of a drug investigation that year. The other 13 were all rounded up and arraigned in local courts. The indictment was issued after Darling vanished and was opened just days before the body was discovered in October 1984.
Thus, the victim never got to face the drug charge in court. Someone had prevented that by discharging a gun into his head, shooting off his jawbone, and leaving his body in a spot where it was exposed to wildlife.
While some might be prone to label the murder victim “a druggie,” Suzanne Darling said she recalls her brother as a young man of many dimensions and interests. He loved the outdoors, riding dirt bikes and cooking, she said. Had his life not been snuffed out all those years ago, she said, she wonders if he would have become a talented chef.
What attracted him to the marijuana trade in the first place, she said, was likely not the drug itself but the opportunity to make some extra money. She said it’s possible he was murdered because he knew too much about certain people connected to drug trafficking in the Gloversville area, a scenario suggested by the fact he had been under grand jury investigation at or near the time of the murder.
Following the discovery of the body on the first day of the 1984 hunting season, this reporter also spoke briefly to the victim’s father, Robert Darling Sr., who died in late 2011. He had said he was not yet ready to talk about the killing, cryptically noting, “When I talk, some people may not like what I’ve got to say.”
Bazan pointed out that anyone who was reluctant to share details about the crime 30 years ago because of their own involvement in drugs would not have to worry about facing narcotics charges now because enough years have gone by to prevent them from being prosecuted now for old drug offenses.
“There is definitely somebody out there now who knows what happened,” the investigator said. “Our hope is that somebody who may have been afraid to give information then will be willing to talk now.”
He noted that all the physical evidence collected in 1984 has been resubmitted to the State Police crime lab for new tests in the hopes of generating new leads.
Suzanne Darling said she has heard from one man who claimed he was in Benson with several men when Robert Darling Jr., who had worked briefly at Coleco, the Amsterdam factory that produced Cabbage Patch dolls, was murdered. Several people had beaten up Robert Darling that night, and later, in Benson, two men walked him into the woods, and only those two men returned, Suzanne Darling said she was told by her informant.
But she said police do not consider the man who volunteered that information to be credible.
Bazan said he is pursuing all leads as they arise. He recalled telling Suzanne Darling: “Your brother deserved to be arrested for the drug crimes. He didn’t deserve to be murdered.”
Over the passage of time, loyalties that existed between friends from long ago can change, and people who were reluctant to volunteer tips to police may no longer hold back important details, he said.
“Our hope is there is that one person out there who has the information we need,” he said.
Suzanne Darling said she shares that hope. “I’m hoping to get people talking, and hopefully generate some new leads,” she said. “It’d be wonderful if the person or people involved would have a little bit of a guilty conscience, and decide to come forward on their own. Of course, I’m more realistic than that.”
In an attempt to stimulate leads, she has taken to social media, creating a Facebook page called “Bob Darling Jr. — Who Murdered Him.”
State Police are urging anyone with information about the murder to contact investigators at 518-725-3034 or 518-783-3212.
