‘It won’t bring Kelly back’

20 years after murder, killer’s family moves

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Two decades of tension on a Valley Stream street finally appears to be over. Last Saturday, the parents of a man who strangled and beat to death a 13-year-old girl moved out of the house where her body was found.

“We’re very happy,” said Victoria Tinyes, the mother of Kelly Ann Tinyes, whose body was found hidden a few houses away, in the basement of convicted killer Robert Golub’s home in March of 1989. “We feel that they should have moved 20 years ago. It’s just 20 years too late.”

After two decades of conflict, Golub’s parents, John and Elizabeth, were seen loading a moving truck outside their Horton Road home. Over the years, the two families have filed lawsuits and police complaints, most recently in 2007, when the Golubs said their cars were vandalized. At one point, some of the Tinyeses’ neighbors issued a news release formally asking the Golubs to leave.

Now that the Golubs are gone, residents say, tensions may cool on the block. “It’s been so many years,” said Pamela DeLuca, who lives nearby. “I think it will be more relaxed. I think they should have been gone from the beginning. It would have been a relief to the children.”

DeLuca said the Golubs had no empathy after Kelly Ann Tinyes’s murder, and that she was suspicious of the family and their behavior before and after the murder. “I’m glad they left, because every time you see them, you’re reminded,” she said. “I wish the house would go too.”

Robert Golub was 21 in 1990, when he was convicted of luring Kelly to his family’s home and killing her. He is serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life. Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced in March that she was reopening the case to determine whether anyone else was involved in the murder.

The Tinyeses said they believe the Golubs’ other son, John J., may have also participated in the killing. “Kathleen Rice is looking to see if anyone else was involved,” Victoria Tinyes said, “and hopefully something will come out of it and we’ll have some closure. They’re not here, so it’s better. It won’t bring Kelly back.”

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