Teen charged in killing of 88-year-old neighbor in West Camp

An 88-year-old West Camp woman and a 15-year-old neighbor are now at the center of one of the most jarring cases in recent Saugerties memory. Elena Bonjolo was publicly identified after investigators say her body was found outside an abandoned residence at 25 John Shults Road, and police later charged Mark Wanchik II with second-degree murder.

Saugerties police said officers were called to the property on Sunday, June 7, after receiving information about a possible homicide. When they arrived, they found Bonjolo outside the vacant home. Investigators said her death occurred sometime between about 9:25 a.m. and 1:52 p.m. that day, and that blunt-impact injuries to the head and neck caused her death.

The public identification came on June 11, when police named Bonjolo and said the teenager who lived nearby had been arrested. Police said Wanchik was taken to the station by family members and arrested there. He has been treated under New York’s youth-part system, which allows a serious felony case to move through adult court while still recognizing that the accused is a minor.

Bonjolo’s funeral home listing identified her as a June 7 decedent from West Camp, and her obituary gave her birth year as 1937, confirming that she was 88 when she died. Police said Bonjolo and Wanchik knew each other and were neighbors, though they were not related. That detail has sharpened the shock around the case, which unfolded in a small stretch of Ulster County where violence of this scale is described by local officials as rare.

Saugerties Town Supervisor Fred Costello called the killing extraordinarily unusual for the area, while Mayor Bill Murphy and Police Chief Ken Swart pointed to the shock rippling through the community. News 12 Hudson Valley reported that neighbors said the homicide shook the quiet John Shults Road area, with residents trying to absorb how a familiar face and a teenage suspect ended up tied to a murder investigation.

Police said the case is still open and that additional charges are expected. Wanchik is being held in county jail as investigators continue to sort out what happened in the hours before Bonjolo was found dead outside the abandoned house. For now, the most disturbing part of the case remains the same: an elderly neighbor was killed in broad daylight, and the arrest came only after family brought the teenage suspect to police.