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Sarah Strobel

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Sarah Strobel was found dead in Suffolk County park in 2013

Fernando Romualdo mugshot from SCPD

A young woman’s alleged murderer has been arrested in Suffolk County, more than two years after police found her dead body in a nature preserve, shocking her community.

The Suffolk County Police Department announced on Thursday that they had charged 28-year-old Fernando Romualdo with second-degree murder in the case of Sarah Strobel, whose lifeless body was found in the Froehlich Farm Nature Preserve in October 2013.

Attorney information for the suspect, a Huntington Station resident, was not immediately available on the New York State court system’s online database.

Romualdo was incarcerated at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in upstate Rome on an unrelated charge but is now being held without bail at the county jail in Riverhead. According to the New York State Department of Corrections’ inmate database, he was sentenced to three years for second-degree rape last year, with his earliest possible release date in March 2018.

The 23-year-old murder victim, herself a Huntington Station resident who lived just a few blocks away from the defendant, was discovered at the Huntington nature preserve, near West Rogues Path, shortly before 9 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2013. Police said that day that a person walking on a path in the park noticed the body of an adult female off to the side of the path and called police. Authorities later identified her as Strobel and deemed her death criminal in nature.

Above, a scene from a candlelight vigil where friends of 23-year-old Sarah Strobel gathered. Photo from Taylor Friedman
Above, a scene from a candlelight vigil where friends of 23-year-old Sarah Strobel gathered. Photo from Taylor Friedman

Shortly after she was found dead, a friend of Strobel’s said the walking path was a favorite hiking spot of the victim’s. That friend, Taylor Friedman, helped organize a candlelight vigil to pay tribute to the young woman, a 2008 Walt Whitman High School graduate in the South Huntington school district.

“Sarah was a free spirit and a wise soul,” Friedman said at the time. “She lived her life to the fullest and made the best of any situation whether it was bad or good.”

Strobel was also honored in July 2015, when Huntington Station residents came together to honor several youths who had been killed over the last few years and dedicated both trees and a memorial stone to those victims at Depot Road Park.

In addition to Strobel, the community remembered the lives of 18-year-old Maggie Rosales, who was found stabbed to death, lying on Lynch Street in October 2014, and 25-year-old Danny Carbajal, who was shot in the head outside his home in July 2014. While a Huntington Station man has been prosecuted for Rosales’ murder, Carbajal’s death remains unsolved.

The deaths spurred community efforts to make Huntington Station a safer place.

Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese
Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese

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Friends, family of young victims dedicate memorial to trio

Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese

Friends and family of three Huntington Station youths who were killed over the last two years came together on Thursday evening to dedicate trees and a memorial stone in their honor.

The Huntington Town-sponsored memorial ceremony took place at Depot Road Park and featured friends and family of 18-year-old Maggie Rosales, 25-year-old Danny Carbajal and 23-year old Sarah Strobel, as well as a number of community members.

Rosales was found stabbed to death, lying on Lynch Street in Huntington Station last October. Carbajal was shot in the head in July 2014 outside his Huntington Station home. Strobel’s body was found off the side of a path in Froehlich Farm Nature Preserve in October 2013.

Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese
Friends, family and town officials gather to remember Maggie Rosales, Danny Carbajal and Sarah Strobel in Huntington Station on Thursday. Three trees were planted in their honor. Photo by Mary Beth Steenson Kraese

Town officials attended the memorial service and offered some words, town spokesman A.J. Carter said on Friday. Many community members took part in the effort, including Kathleen Kufs and Jim McGoldrick, two individuals who organized the event.

“To be honest with you, it was a sad thing that we had to do this, but in a way it brought the community together,” McGoldrick reflected in a phone call on Friday. “And the community is very concerned about our children, and our teenagers especially.”

While there’s still more to do, McGoldrick said “things are getting better” in Huntington Station. He said he got involved in efforts to extinguish crime in the neighborhood after Rosales was found dead in the street in front of his home.

Kufs said she came up with the idea for the memorial a few months ago. She wanted “to have a place for the families and friends of these poor young people who were murdered, a place to go for peace and reflection and for the community to remember that these young lives were lost but not forgotten, and also to shed light on the fact that two of them are still unsolved.”

Police have charged Huntington Station man Adam Saalfield with Rosales’ murder, but the other two victims have not yet seen justice.

“There’s no closure,” McGoldrick said. “Danny and Sarah’s murderers have never been caught. People are very concerned about that.”

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Cops call Sarah Strobel's death ‘criminal’

Above, a scene from a candlelight vigil where friends of 23-year-old Sarah Strobel gathered. Photo from Taylor Friedman

Suffolk County police have deemed criminal the death of a 23-year-old Huntington Station woman whose body was found in the Froehlich Farm Nature Preserve last Thursday, police said Monday.

The woman was identified as Sarah Strobel of East 6th Street in Huntington Station. Her body was found just before 9 am in the preserve off West Rogues Path in Huntington Station, according to police.

Detectives from the Suffolk County Police Department’s Homicide Squad started an investigation after a person walking at the preserve noticed the body off the side of the path and called police, the SCPD said last week.

The path was a favorite hiking spot of Strobel’s, according to 22-year-old Taylor Friedman, who said the young woman was one of her best friends. Friedman helped organize a candlelight
vigil with Strobel’s other friends, which was held last Friday.

Taylor Friedman, a close friend of Sarah Strobel’s, remembers the 23-year-old at a candlelight vigil. Photo by J.D. Neek
Taylor Friedman, a close friend of Sarah Strobel’s, remembers the 23-year-old at a candlelight vigil. Photo by J.D. Neek

“It’s still really fresh and raw for all of us,” Friedman said in a phone interview on Monday from Haven Hair Spa, where she works as an assistant manager. “This is my first day back at work, and I feel like I’m in a cloud.”

Friedman and Strobel visited the preserve a handful of times, and they both shared hiking as a favorite hobby, Friedman said.

“Sarah was a free spirit and a wise soul,” the friend said. “She lived her life to the fullest and made the best of any situation whether it was bad or good.”

Rebecca Stander, a childhood friend of Strobel’s, also remembered the 23-year-old fondly. In a statement Stander said Strobel was her “best friend since third grade,” noting how the two would do their homework together. Strobel’s favorite cereal was Fruity Pebbles, she said, and her favorite perfume was Lolita Lempicka.

Strobel, a 2008 Walt Whitman High School graduate, was also remembered by the South Huntington School District.

“We have little additional information at this point but do know that our hearts go out to Sarah’s family during this difficult time,” Superintendent David P. Bennardo said in a statement posted on the district’s website. “The members of our South Huntington learning community join in mourning Sarah’s passing and keep her in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.”

Strobel loved music, both Stander and Friedman said. Her favorite bands included Incubus and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Friedman said.

“I want the world to know how loved she is,” Stander wrote, “and that beautiful rock star will always remain alive in my heart.”

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