The Randolph killing, we may as well call it, freezes the blood and all but estops the working of the mind. What does thoughtful analysis yield? Have we learned anything in any sense new? Surely – we need to comfort ourselves by saying – the Randolph killing is not merely new, it is unique?

Jonathan Zarate is 18 and weighs about 140 pounds. He had quit high school, but hadn’t got a job. He lived with his divorced father and his father’s new wife and her four children in the leafy community of Randolph, N.J., whose inhabitants have a median family income of $110,000.

On July 30, Jonathan called a neighbor, 16-year-old Jennifer Parks, who lived next door. Would Jennifer like to come on over and watch some television with Jonathan in the basement? It was 2 a.m., but Jennifer, described as chubby and bubbly, said yes, and walked on over.

Soon after, Jonathan got mad, really mad at Jennifer. He beat her with an aluminum pole, then knifed her, then stuffed a bandanna down her throat.

But now he had a corpse, and these are ungainly, so Jonathan undertook to saw off Jennifer’s legs, just below the knees. He got hold of a family steamer trunk and stuffed her and the legs into it, and dragged it into the back of his father’s Jeep. He went back to the basement and got some bleach, with which he tackled the bloodstains on the carpet.

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Parks, the girl’s parents, went about in the neighborhood looking for her. They stopped at Jonathan’s house and asked if he had seen her. He said no, and rejoined the singing of “Happy Birthday” as a cake was passed about celebrating his stepsister’s birthday. By noon that day the parents were worried enough about Jennifer’s absence to call the police. A search yielded nothing. Jonathan was again asked if he had seen Jennifer around, and said no.

Late Sunday night, Jonathan asked his 14-year-old brother James, who lived with their divorced mother but was spending the weekend at the Zarate home, to help him with a project. James agreed, and persuaded a 16-year-old friend, who lived 30 miles away, to join in helping.

Jonathan and James picked up the third teenager and drove the Jeep to a bridge on the Passaic River. The three pulled the trunk out and were about to heave it into the water when they were spotted by a policeman. He was curious enough to know what was going on that he drew his gun and asked questions.

Before the night was over, Jonathan was arraigned on a number of charges, including first-degree murder. The two younger teenagers were charged with unlawful disposal of human remains and tampering with evidence. They were sent off to a juvenile detention center. Jonathan went to the Morris County jail.

The police announced that Jonathan confessed to what he had done, even supplying details. The police chief said that Jonathan could not reasonably have hoped to conceal what he had done. “Short of burning down the house,” the chief said, “or getting rid of the floorboards and throwing out all the drains, he couldn’t have covered this up.” But Jonathan sought to be protective about his kid brother, insisting that James had no idea whatever what was in the trunk he was helping to toss into the river in the middle of the night.

From interviews, reporters gleaned the information that Jonathan had had to repeat his junior year at high school, that he had quarreled with the school principal, that he was streetwise, listened to gangster rap, wore baggy sweatshirts, and was scrappy even with boys bigger and heavier than he. Jennifer was an only child, described as “shy and sweet, and a shameless fan of Harry Potter.”

It is tabloid fare for sure, but what arrests the attention, after the retailing of one more gruesome act by mankind, is the inexplicable matter of first, the brother, then the brother’s friend, aged 14 and 16. Are we being told that one should not be surprised that suburban teenagers agree to cover up a quite brutal killing? Is there a story underneath? Did Jonathan have a hypnotic hold on James, indeed a hold that extended to a 16-year-old living 30 miles away?

The thing is so bad, so unremittingly evil, we need to know more about it, even if it closes out hope for however many young Americans who live in that cesspool. Is it worldwide?