10 Weirdest Unsolved Disappearances That Nobody Can Explain.
Every March and April, dozens of cities across the southern portion of North America are
inundated with college students. Excited to take a break from studying, they fill their
days with beaches, bikinis, and booze. Tragically, some of these young people also fall victim
to murders and mysterious disappearances. 1. Kim Vaccaro And Lisa Eisman
Two young women found beaten to death and dumped in a Florida river have been identified
as roommates at the State University College at Buffalo who disappeared last week on a
spring break, hitchhiking trip to Fort Lauderdale, authorities in Florida said yesterday.
In an apparently unrelated case, another young woman, a student at the State University at
Albany, also was reported missing en route to Fort Lauderdale, whose sun-washed beaches
attract tens of thousands of college students from across the country during the spring
holidays.
The dead women, found last Tuesday in the Hillsborough River near Tampa, were identified
by the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's office in Tampa as Lisa Eisman, 20 years old,
of Fairport, N.Y., near Rochester, and Kim Vaccaro, 20, of LaGrange, N.Y., near Poughkeepsie.
Both woman, who were identified by dental records, had been slain by heavy blows to
the head, according to the Medical Examiner, Dr. Peter Lardizabal. He said tests to determine
whether the partially clad victims had been sexually molested were incomplete.
The police said that clothing and possessions of the two women, including about $200 they
had at the start of their trip, was missing.
''We're sad and horrified,'' said Dr. Bruce Johnstone, president of the State University
College at Buffalo, which has more than 10,000 undergraduates.
''We do sponsor a bus trip to Florida, which they were originally going to take,'' Dr.
Johnstone said in a telephone interview. ''But they changed their minds, evidently. We certainly
do what we can to discourage hitchhiking, and I don't think it is particularly prevalent,
especially not among the women students.''
Dr. Johnstone said he believed that both women lived in an apartment off campus. Because
the school was closed for spring break, he said he did not have access yesterday to academic
records and had no information about their programs of major study and other campus activities.
A relative of Miss Vaccaro said she was the youngest of eight children, grew up in New
Rochelle, N.Y., and Poughkeepsie, and graduated from Arlington High School in Poughkeepsie
in 1982. She was a junior at Buffalo State, studying to be a social worker.
The relative said Miss Eisman was also a junior and was majoring in special education.
The two women were last seen in Buffalo on March 29 as they climbed into a tractor-trailer
truck on the first leg of their journey to Fort Lauderdale, where they had agreed to
meet a third roommate, Evelyn Berkowitz, two days later.
They had not informed their families and had told only a few friends they were going to
Florida, investigators said. A friend received a postcard from Miss Eisman and Miss Vaccaro
that had been mailed in Hagerstown, Md., near the Virginia border, on March 30.
After that, there was no word until the bodies were found last Tuesday by two fishermen in
an isolated stretch of the Hillsborough River, northeast of Tampa, which is on Florida's
Gulf Coast about halfway down the state.
''It's an undeveloped area,'' said Lieut. Kenneth Dodge of the Tampa Police Department.
''The only thing out there is the river and some woods.''
Both victims were found floating in the water. Miss Eisman's body, clad only in a blue T-shirt,
was pulled from the river about 400 yards west of a bridge on Interstate 75 at about
6:30 A.M. by a retired Tampa police detective, Harry Wolf.
''The area is so remote, I knew it had to be a body dumped from the bridge spans,''
Mr. Wolf recalled.
About two hours later, at a spot 300 yards from where Miss Eisman was found, another
fisherman, John Green, found the body of Miss Vaccaro, also clothed only in a T-shirt.
The victims had been in the water for about two days, according to the Medical Examiner.
The women were not immediately identified. Miss Eisman's father, Paul, had filed a missing
person's report on his daughter after learning that she had failed to arrive in Fort Lauderdale
to meet Miss Berkowitz, and law-enforcement agencies along the East Coast were alerted.
Dental records were used to confirm the identity of Miss Eisman on Friday evening and of Miss
Vaccaro yesterday afternoon.
In the investigation of the murders, Tampa police and New York State Police investigators
were attempting to trace the route and actions of the victims from the time they left Buffalo.
Miss Berkowitz, of Merrick, L.I., told United Press International on Friday that she had
been ''totally against'' her friends' plan to hitchhike to Florida, where they planned
to spend the spring break that was to continue through the Easter Weekend.
She said Miss Eisman had armed himself with a knife for protection, while Miss Vaccaro
had an ordinary table knife, along with a fork and spoon.
The third New York student missing en route to Fort Lauderdale was identified as 22-year-old
Karen Wilson of the State University of New York at Albany.
According to George Crolius, a spokesman for the Broward County Sheriff's office at Fort
Lauderdale, Miss Wilson was last seen March 27 as she left a tanning salon in Colonie,
N.Y., wearing a white shirt, blue jeans and a waist-length white jacket.
2. Stacie Madison And Susan Smalley My daughter still has not been found and I
can't stop looking for her, she said.
Madison just wants to know what happened to her oldest daughter, Stacie.
As their classmates from Carrollton's Newman High School started Spring Break, Stacie and
her friend, Susan Smalley, disappeared March 20, 1988.
Volunteers passed out hundreds of fliers with the girls' pictures on them at shopping centers,
but the two high school seniorsseemingly vanished without a trace.
With no credible leads and a stalled investigation, their storysoon faded from the headlines.
I think this case has languished for too long, said Shawn Sutherland.
Almost 22 years after Stacie and Susan disappeared, Sutherland has revived their case.
As a 1982 graduate of the same high school, he was drawn to their story. Sutherland briefly
met Susan before she disappeared when she workedas a hostessat the Steak &Ale Restaurant
in Addison.
Over the last seven months, Sutherland, who isa paralegal, has spent his own time and
money conducting an independentinvestigation that he recently self-published in abook titled
This Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley.
In the book, the original Carrollton Police detectives working the case, who have since
left the department, admit Stacie's boyfriend was never entirely cleared in the case.
As far as they know, his family and friends were never pressed and they should be, Sutherland
said.
Her boyfriend, who is not mentioned by name, confessed to his newgirlfriend that he killed
the two girls and then immediately recanted. Investigators stopped pursuing him after hepassed
a polygraph.
Madison thinks Carrollton police did the best they could with the knowledge they had in
1988. But, she isn't convinced her daughter's former boyfriend had nothing to do with the
disappearance until he's finally cleared.
Maybe he did exactly what he told that girl he did do - that he hit them both over the
back of the head and killed them, then he buried their bodies and took the car back,
she said.
Madison doubts Stacie or Susan are still alive. Their disappearance remains one of the oldest
unsolved cases in Carrollton. It's still classified as missing persons since there is noevidence
of a homicide. Their missing poster still hangs inside the Carrollton Police Department.
Sgt. Joel Payne said thecase remains active, is assigned to an investigator and leads still
trickle in. But, detectives wouldn't reveal whether they're still following up with Stacie's
former boyfriend or taking any other steps for investigative reasons.
Payne and Madison hope Sutherland's book, which he is selling at cost, generates new
leads in the unsolved mystery.
For now, more than two decades later, it's stilla story without an ending.
3. Brian Shaffer 11 years ago today, Brian Shaffer vanished
and left a wake of unanswered questions that have tormented the people who want to find
him most.
Derek Shaffer still wears a green missing-person bracelet with his brother's name. Derek
lost his entire immediate family in short order. Cancer took his mom. Three weeks later,
his brother disappeared. And about two years after that, his father, who searched hardest
for Brian, was killed by a falling tree branch in a windstorm. Now, Derek and his wife, Maurin,
are left to shoulder the emotional toll of Brian's unknown fate.
Alexis Waggoner waited in Brian's apartment alone for two days after he went missing,
hoping that she and her boyfriend would get on a plane that day headed to Miami, where
Brian hinted he might propose. But he never came home. Waggoner soon became the beautiful
face of a frantic search that gained national attention. As time passed, she moved beyond
the bewildering unknown that imprisoned her, but she still occasionally finds herself online,
searching for answers that may never come.
Sgt. John Hurst would awake to 3 a.m. phone calls from Randy Shaffer, sometimes for updates
on his son's investigation, other times just needing a friend. No case has consumed
Hurst like Brian's. There were hundreds of interviews, thousands of hours watching
video and countless dead ends. Even after switching police units and jobs, Hurst kept
the case, remaining the lead investigator on a case still swirling in questions.
Did someone murder the handsome 27-year-old Ohio State University medical student?
Did the death of his mother and stress of medical school cause him to run away from
his life?
Did he kill himself? Is he still alive?
Shaffer went missing after a night of drinking with friends on April 1, 2006. But those closest
to him and the search for him often have been the ones lost in the mystery.
"Everybody has a theory," Hurst said. "We have been able to answer a lot of questions
and rule things out, but the ultimate mystery remains - what happened that night, and where
is Brian?"
It was the beginning of spring break for Ohio State students on March 31, 2006, and Brian
Shaffer wanted his family to celebrate the beginning of vacation with him and friends
that Friday night.
He invited his brother, Derek, and Derek's wife, Maurin, to meet him at the Ugly Tuna
Saloona after their date at the Funny Bone Comedy Club.
But the show ran late, and the high-school sweethearts decided they were too tired to
visit a crowded campus bar on High Street, so they drove straight home.
"I've thought about that night over and over and over for 10 years," said Derek,
now 34. "What if I had been there that night? Would things have been different? Would my
brother still be here? I've carried that guilt around for a while."
Grainy video footage shows Brian entering the Ugly Tuna that night, but it never shows
him exiting the bar. It shows Brian at the top of the escalator outside the bar at about
1:50 a.m. talking to women who his friend, Clint Florence, knew from Ohio State. Brian
walks back inside the bar after the women leave. Florence later told police that he
had seen Brian after he returned inside the bar and said they were planning to leave.
But he lost track of him.
Two nights later, Derek received a call from his dad saying Brian was missing. Derek used
to believe there was a chance his brother might still be alive, but he never thought
that Brian just ran off to escape his life.
Florence initially cooperated with the investigation but then hired an attorney and refused to
take a polygraph test or talk further with police. He couldn't be reached for comment.
"If I saw him I'd say, 'Where the hell is my brother?' " Derek said. "If anyone
knows whether he is still alive, or if something happened to him, it's Clint."
The brothers had never been closer than after their mom, Renee, lost her fight with cancer
about three weeks before Brian went missing. Brian was the one blessed with a charm that
attracted attention from just about everyone. Derek was more introverted and content with
a smaller group of friends and Maurin, whom he married in 2009.
At first, Derek thought his brother was just sleeping off a long weekend at a friend's
house. Or that he was playing some kind of practical joke.
But that all changed when he saw police at his brother's apartment and learned that
all of Brian's possessions, even his glasses, remained untouched.
Derek joined in many of the massive searches for Brian around the campus area and the Olentangy
River. He called Brian's cell number hundreds of times for about a year, praying that he
would hear his voice one more time.
"We never could have believed then that 10 years later we still don't know what
happened to Brian," Maurin said. "It's been so hard watching Derek go through this,
but we had to get back into our normal lives." Derek and Maurin now live in Canal Winchester
with their 2-year-old son. Derek continues his work installing electrical and communication
systems for businesses around central Ohio.
It's hardest for Derek when he hears news reports that someone else has gone missing.
That was the case last month when Joseph LaBute Jr., a handsome 26-year-old, went missing
after leaving a bar in the same area where Brian went missing.
"It just brings all the pain from Brian back again," Derek said. "How long will
it be before we know something? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty? Never?"
4. Brittanee Drexel Brittanee resided in Rochester, New York in
2009; she was a junior at Gates-Chili High School, where she was a star player on the
soccer team. Her parents are legally separated and Brittanee lived with her mother, but saw
her father frequently. In April 2009, Brittanee asked for her mother's permission to travel
to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for spring break with her friends and longtime boyfriend.
Her mother said no, they argued about it, and Brittanee got permission to go to a friend's
home. She went to Myrtle Beach in spite of what her mother said. Her mother was unaware
of this; she thought Brittanee was staying with a friend locally. They spoke several
times on the telephone after she arrived in South Carolina. Brittanee's mother didn't
find out where her daughter really was until she was notified that Brittanee had disappeared.
Brittanee's friends last saw her Bar Harbor Hotel in Myrtle Beach at 8:00 p.m. on April
25, 2009. Brittanee walked more than a mile to the Blue Water Resort on Ocean Boulevard,
where other friends were staying. Surveillance cameras there show her going into the resort,
then leaving sometime after 8:30 p.m. At 9:15 p.m., she sent a text message to one of her
friends saying she was going to see a friend who was staying at another hotel. She has
never been heard from again. She left all her clothes behind at her hotel room. Her
beige purse and pink cellular phone disappeared with her. The phone's last signal was near
U.S. 17 and the Charleston County line the night Brittanee went missing. Since then its
battery has died.
In the summer of 2016, investigators announced they believe they know what happened to Brittanee,
and named a suspect in her case. They believe she was held against her will for four days
before being murdered. A witness, Taquan Brown, testified he'd seen Timothy Da'Shaun Taylor
and several other people sexually assaulting Brittanee at a drig dealer's "stash house"
in McClellanville, South Carolina, a small town about sixty miles south of Myrtle Beach.
Timothy's father, Shaun Taylor, was also present. Police believe Timothy planned to force Brittanee
into prostitution, but after her disappearance received widespread publicity, he decided
to kill her. At one point, Brittanee tried to escape and ran from the house, but she
was caught, pistol-whipped and taken back inside. Brown says he later heard two gunshots
and later saw Brittanee's cloth-wrapped body carried out of the house. It was supposedly
dumped in one of the many local alligator pits.
A photo of Timothy is posted below this case summary. He would have been sixteen years
old at the time of Brittanee's disappearance and is currently awaiting trial in a 2011
robbery case; he was the getaway driver in the robbery of a restaurant. He had already
been convicted of the robbery in state court and sentenced to eighteen months of probation,
which he completed, but he was charged again in federal court and could face a life sentence.
Federal prosecutors don't usually charge people who were already convicted in state court,
but they did so in this instance in part because of his suspected role in Brittanee's disappearance.
Timothy maintains his innocence in Brittanee's case and, due to lack of evidence, he has
not faced charges in connection with her disappearance. He claims he doesn't even know Brown, who
is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter. Brown's his account
of Brittanee's murder has not been substantied by other eyewitnesses, although a second police
informant says he heard about what happened from another eyewitness. A search of the house
where she supposedly died turned up nothing. Authorities are searching for Brittanee's
remains; there are dozens of alligator pits in the McClellanville area.
Brittanee moved frequently during her childhood because her father was in the military. Her
parents describe her as a very resourceful, strong-minded and independent young woman.
She was upset over her parents' pending divorce, but they don't believe she ran away, as this
is uncharacteristic of her and they don't think she would have left her clothes behind.
Her boyfriend of three years agrees with this assessment. Brittanee was studying cosmetology
in high school and is very interested in fashion and wearing stylish outfits. Her case remains
unsolved.
5. Sarah Ann Ottens Just before midnight Tuesday, March 13, 1973,
20-year-old Sarah Ann Ottens of Morrison, Illinois, was found dead in room 429 of Rienow
Hall at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Sarah was lying partially naked on the floor
under a clean bed sheet with her clothes strewn about the room. She died of suffocation from
severely swollen neck injuries. She was also struck on the face and chest, possibly with
a broom handle found lying nearby. The killer had washed her face and hair and
left bloody water in the room's sink. Authorities refused to confirm if there was sexual assault.
Sarah was found by Brenda Simpson, a student from Waterloo, who was the only other resident
staying on the 4th floor in the coeducational dormitory during the university's spring
Break.
The room was home to two other coeds who were gone. It had been made comfortable with a
TV and stereo and was a popular gathering spot for students of both sexes. Sarah's
own room was 408, but she had a key to 429 and sometimes slept there.
Sarah gave up a trip with friends to Florida for Spring Break to earn extra money waitressing
in the cafeteria of the University Hospital School, a rehabilitative center for handicapped
children where she worked part-time. She planned to visit her family in Illinois later in the
week. A Grand Jury heard testimony in the summer
of 1973 and in September indicted 20-year-old James Wendall Hall for the murder. Hall was
a part-time University of Iowa student from Toledo, Ohio, and a former football player
who lived in a dorm across the street from where Sarah Ottens's body was found.
He was arrested on Wednesday, September 19, 1973. His bond hearing was attended by a large
support group, mostly of Iowa City's black community and fellow athletes. His bail was
set at $50,000, which he could not raise. In December of 1973, he was charged with forgery
in a separate case.
At Hall's May 1974 trial, the Prosecution introduced hair evidence; the Iowa Bureau
of Criminal Investigation Lab said hair on Ottens's body matched Hall's and that
hair on Hall's shoe matched Ottens's. A bloody fingerprint on a faucet in the murder
room was identified as Hall's. He was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced
to 50 years. Appeals began shortly afterwards. Witnesses
came forward saying that "most" jurors consumed alcohol with their supper at the
University Athletic Club before going back for two hours of deliberation and finding
Hall guilty.
The defense claimed there was "a mystery man" seen with Ottens that day who was not
black. There were also allegations of racial statements made during Grand Jury proceedings,
as well as an alleged juror's remark that Hall was guilty before a verdict was reached.
The Iowa Supreme Court upheld Hall's conviction, saying that he had received a fair trial.
In October 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
In 1983, an appeal was launched that claimed another man, suspected of three campus sexual
assaults, confessed to killing Sarah Ottens. In late November 1983, Hall's conviction
was over-turned because the Prosecution had withheld evidence. Hall was released from
John Bennett Correctional Center at Fort Madison, Iowa, after spending seven years in prison
for the murder.
No one else was ever charged with the crime.
In 1993, a Davenport, Iowa, jury convicted James Wendall Hall of strangling 31-year-old
Susan Hajek in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on March 20, 1992.
Sarah Ann Ottens was the first child of Myra Schaut and Robert William Ottens. She was
born February 9, 1953 in Morrison, Illinois, where her family of Dutch lineage was prominent
and civic-minded.
Her father was Manager of Accounting at the Morrison General Electric Plant, one of the
area's largest employers, and her grandfather was a county official.
At Morrison High School, Sarah was involved in drama, the school newspaper, a radio station
and the yearbook.
After graduation, she attended St. Francis School of Nursing in Peoria, Illinois, before
transferring to the University of Iowa, where she was conscientious and serious about her
nursing studies.
Friends and teachers regarded her as a sweet, attractive, vivacious young woman with a good
sense of humor.
Sarah's funeral was held March 16, 1973 at the Emmanuel Reformed Church in Morrison,
Illinois, and she was buried in Grove Hill Cemetery.
In addition to her parents and paternal grandparents, Harriet Ten Boer and William Ottens, she was
survived by siblings Sandy, 13; Scott, 9; and twins Susan and Sam, 18.
6. Susan Jacques A year ago today, 10 high school students
from Trumbull, Conn., arrived in Fort Lauderdale, primed to play and party. Two weeks later,
their Spring Break had become a tragic memory.
Nine of the youths had to return home without the 10th -- Susan Jacques.
The last thing anyone is certain of is that Jacques left her beachfront motel room alone
in the middle of the night. Three days later, on April 29, 1986, the 18-year-old`s body
was found about 35 miles away, floating in a canal west of Delray Beach.
Little has been learned about her death, despite efforts by homicide detectives with the Fort
Lauderdale Police Department and the Palm Beach Sheriff`s Office, a private eye and
a psychic.
The mysterious case is compounded by an inconclusive autopsy, no known witnesses and no apparent
motive.
There hasn`t been a lead to pursue for months now, said Phil Mundy, the Fort Lauderdale
homicide detective assigned to the case.
All the neat stuff detectives do . . . finger-print checks, crime scene evidence, we`ve done all
that, `` he said. ``There`s nothing left. ``
The case is dormant but, like all unsolved homicides, remains open.
Meanwhile, quietly and somberly, Jacques` family and friends continue to try to cope
with the absence of the bright, college-bound girl.
``I think people can understand what we are going through without going into our personal
emotions, `` said her mother, Louise Jacques. `It`s something you live with daily and we
do the best we can. ``
To minimize their grief, Jacques and her husband, Warren, a tree surgeon in Trumball, have stopped
calling police here to inquire about the case. Last summer, Jacques` graduating class planted
a tree in front of their high school in her memory. Their slain classmate had been accepted
at the University of Hartford.
Jacques` best friend, Kara Buckley, the last known person to see Jacques alive, has gone
on to the University of Rhode Island.
She was always happy. I know that`s what people always say about someone who isn`t around
anymore. But that`s how she really was, `` Buckley said. ``Even if something happened to get
her down, it wouldn`t last. ``
The case`s baffling elements begin with Jacques` parting words to Buckley at 3:30 a.m. last
April 26.
Leaving their room in the Mark 2100 Hotel on North Atlantic Boulevard, Jacques told
Buckley and other friends she was going for a stroll on the beach. Buckley said she begged
Jacques not to go alone.
But Mundy and others believe she really set out to find friends with whom she had been
dancing and drinking earlier that night at another motel.
Someplace along the way -- Mundy theorizes between the motel and Sunrise Boulevard -- she
vanished. ``It probably was a stranger, probably an abduction by guile or by force, into a
car, `` he said.
Robbery and sexual assault have been ruled out as motives. When Jacques` body was found,
she was fully clothed and still wearing expensive jewelry.
Her body, found three days after she disappeared, was so decomposed that medical examiners could
not determine the cause of death. There were no bruises, bullet wounds or other unusual
injuries, Mundy said. Nor was there anything to suggest that the death was accidental.
It`s a real bizarre case, `` said Joe Dinardo, a Fort Lauderdale private investigator hired
by the Jacques family. ``We`re talking zero from the medical examiner. ``
While police checked into the whereabouts of criminals known to prey on young women
and pursued other leads, Dinardo and a long-time friend of Jacques, Lynn Pastor, set out on
their own. I hit every hotel, every bar on A1A, every
side street, from the Marriott up to Commercial Boulevard, `` Dinardo said.
Dinardo said he came up with the names of several men who had checked out of hotels
earlier than expected and had returned to their homes in other states. Through various
means he eliminated each as a suspect.
Pastor, who grew up with Jacques in Connecticut and now lives in Fort Lauderdale, said she
and Dinardo trekked to numerous bars and parties, carrying Jacques` photo, without success.
About the best chance of breaking the case -- one of only five unsolved homicides in
Fort Lauderdale last year -- is if Jacques` assailant is jailed in an unrelated case and
boasts of killing her to another inmate, police said.
Mundy, a veteran police officer, remains particularly frustrated over the Jacques case because it
isn`t a typical ``whodunit`` -- an unsolved murder for which police have several clues,
suspects and possible motives.
It is difficult, too, to deal with the family when you have so little to tell them, Mundy
said.
``It`s hard to explain to a family why their daughter is dead, `` said Mundy, who has a
daughter just one year older than Susan Jacques.
7. Dana Bailey This March marks the 30th anniversary of the
murder of 21 year-old Penn State student, Dana Bailey. As if her murder itself wasn't
mysterious enough, the case would see twists, turns, and dead ends along with mysteries
within the mystery. On March 5th, 1987 Shirley Bailey went to
visit her daughter Dana at the apartment she lived in off campus at Penn State University.
There was nothing that could have prepared Mrs. Bailey for the horrors awaiting her upon
entering Dana's apartment. Sprawled on the floor on top of some bedding, was Dana's
nude and lifeless body. Dana had been repeatedly stabbed and rope bindings remained on her.
The scene must have been unimaginably horrible for her poor mother.
Police investigators arrived at the scene and immediately found clues. The weapon used
to kill Dana was a butcher knife that belonged to her. She was blindfolded. The stab wounds
had been to her chest and breasts. Investigators determined that Dana had been likely killed
in her bed, and then her body staged on the floor on top of bedding. It was posed in a
sexually suggestive way, almost as if it was on display. Although there was a sexual aspect
of the murder, neither rape nor robbery seemed to be a motive. Dana's engagement ring remained
on her finger. The detectives turned their attention to the likely point of entry, the
window. The believe that her murderer stood on something enabling him to reach up to Dana's
elevated window and simply opened it and climbed in surprising Dana as she slept. Next, the
Detectives took notice of the way her body was displayed and noticed that her body was
in perfect view of a rooftop location across the alleyway. It seemed possible that the
killer displayed Dana's body and then admired his handy-work from across the way. Additionally,
there was an abandoned apartment undergoing renovations across the alleyway in which the
killer may have stalked Dana from before or after the crime.
There were no strong persons of interest and the seeming lack of a motive set off a wave
of fear around the Penn State grounds. Police went back to the day before her body was found,
March 4th, to look for answers. Dana, who worked part time as a waitress, had visited
her fiancé in another town that day and was too tired to work so she wound up calling
out from the restaurant where she was due in at 5:30 pm. She instead decided to go to
a local fitness center for an hour or so, and then returned home to her apartment where
she was last seen by her roommate. Her roommate left to go visit Family. At about 8:30pm,
Dana spoke with her fiancé by phone for about 30 minutes and then presumably went to bed.
Sometime that night or early the next morning, her killer entered her apartment. The coroner
established the time of death as being between late the night of March 4th and early morning
March 5th.
Detectives looked at Dana's friends, family and fiancé early on and ruled them all out
as being involved in the murder. With no solid suspects and no clear MO, the case threatened
to go cold and that's exactly what happened.
In March of 1989 at around the 2-year anniversary of Dana's death, Dana's father received
an anonymous letter signed, 'Concerned Officers'. The letter accused a police officer (who I
will not name) of being responsible for Dana's murder. The Officer cooperated with Detectives
and an investigation by the attorney general's office revealed that the officer was not involved
in the crime. Then, in late 2003, police received an anonymous
letter offering information about the case. There were two persons named in the letter
but there was not enough information contained to bring the case to any kind of end.
Along the way, there have been various suspects and persons of interest, but none strong enough
to be arrested. One promising person of interest who was turned in by a tipster, was a HVAC
Mechanic who had access to rooftops like the one across from Dana's apartment that the
killer may have stalked her from. Like the other leads, this also went nowhere.
Over the past decade, I had the pleasure of corresponding about Dana's case with Detective
Ralph Ralston of the State College Police Dept. Though not the original Detective investigating
her case, he was the first cold case Detective to work on her case years later. Ralston never
seemed to shy away from checking out any lead that came in regarding the case. Now retired
from the State College PD, Ralston has his own theories and suspects in the case but
can't share them due to the investigation being ongoing.
One final note regarding Dana's case; the District Attorney handling her case was Ray
Gricar. Gricar himself would become part of a truly baffling mystery when he vanished
in Pennsylvania in 2005. His car has been found, but no sign of Gricar himself has ever
been found. In a couple days, 30 years will have passed
since the senseless murder of Dana Bailey. The murder is still mentioned by students
and faculty at Penn State. Her family wants and deserves closure.
8. Karen Wilson Wilson was last seen in the 1600 block of
Central Avenue in Colonie, New York, on March 27, 1985 at approximately 7:20 p.m. She gone
to the Colonie Center and bought a red t-shirt and a blue t-shirt in preparation for an upcoming
spring break trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She may or may not have gotten a tan at the
Tanning Hut; she had booked an appointment, but no one at the salon remembers seeing her
there. Investigators initially believed Wilson got
on a bus near the Butcher Block restaurant on Central Avenue and took that to Fuller
Avenue, but it was later determined that she could not have gotten on the bus and probably
walked to Fuller Avenue instead. Witnesses told authorities that she was spotted there
shortly afterwards. Wilson has never been heard from again. Investigators have been
unable to locate the personal belongings that she carried with her on the night of her disappearance;
she had a gray cloth pocketbook, a blue nylon wallet with a velcro closure, a green and
white plastic bag from Ups N Down, and possibly also a blue knapsack containing a yellow dress.
Authorities believe Wilson probably walked south on Fuller Avenue towards the State University
of New York (SUNY) at Albany, where she was a senior political science major. They think
she was abducted somewhere near six-mile Waterworks, the entrance ramp to Interstate 90 westbound
and the Northway. The night was very dark and the road not heavily traveled, and it
would have been possible for a man to pull her into a vehicle in a matter of seconds
without having any witnesses. A strange man was seen in the area at around the time Wilson
vanished; a sketch of him is posted below this case summary. He has never been identified
and is being sought for questioning as a witness, if not a suspect. Police looked into the possibility
that Wilson had possibly traveled to Florida after her disappearance like she planned to,
but found no evidence that she ever left New York.
A possible suspect in Wilson's case died in an accidental house fire in 2013. Authorities
stated they were never able to directly link the man to Wilson and they didn't think he
could have been involved because he reported to work as usual at 4:00 a.m. on March 28,
only hours after Wilson vanished.
Another SUNY-Albany student, Suzanne Lyall, disappeared in 1998, thirteen years after
Wilson. Her disappearance remains unsolved. Authorities have not found anything to link
the two cases, but they stated the circumstances of the women's disappearances were similar.
Wilson's family lived in Plattsburgh, New York in 1985; her father was in the Air Force
there. Wilson aspired to a career in the Foreign Service and had interned at the State Assembly.
Her case remains unsolved. 9. The case of Reny Jose
A local man's spring break disappearance has left many heartbroken but hopeful for
his safe return.
Family and friends of Reny Jose, the missing 21-year-old Albany native, gathered Sunday
at Academy Park to raise awareness and support for the search. The "Walk for Reny" was
led by his family from the park to St. Peter's Episcopal Church, where a candlelight vigil
was held.
Eight weeks since his disappearance, this was the third local event held to raise awareness
of their situation. Hundreds attended in support of the family.
"The events have helped to keep Reny's story alive," said Reashma Jose, Reny's
older sister and only sibling.
Jose was last seen on March 3 in Panama City Beach, Fla. while on a spring-break getaway
with 22 classmates from Rice University in Texas, where Jose was studying to be a mechanical
engineer.
Originally from Albany, Jose is a Shaker High School graduate. He has not been seen or heard
from since he left the beach house at 6:30 p.m. on the evening of his disappearance.
Jose is a 5-foot, 10-inch, 185-pound Indian male with short, black hair and dark brown
eyes.
"He's a very smart, kindhearted overall good person," his sister said. "He's
always the one who's cracking jokes and the life of the party."
As his would-be graduation date quickly approaches, local efforts are being made to locate Jose.
"Reny deserves the chance to walk across that stage on May 17," his sister said.
To date, the circumstances of his disappearance and his whereabouts remain a complete mystery.
His clothes and personal items were found in a garbage can near the house. Florida police
are searching for clues, while his family and friends are praying for his safe return.
New York state and Panama City have been supportive in helping the family search, Reashma said.
Reny Jose's college, however, was insensitive, she shared at the ceremony Sunday. Only after
Albany's government stepped in did the school take an actively involved role.
His travel buddies did not act ideally either.
"None of his friends, with certainty, claimed to have seen him leave the house the night
he went missing," Reashma Jose said. Adding to the ambiguous nature of the situation,
many of Reny Jose's friends left town within 24 hours of his disappearance, and authorities
conducted interviews via phone.
Reashma Jose posed a question on behalf of the family.
"If the students rented a beach house for an entire week, why did they leave so hastily?"
she asked. His companions did not try to aid in the search effort.
But local support is keeping his loved ones optimistic.
"Reny is a very bright kid, he's very studious," said Shaker Baswa, who has known
the family for about a decade. "His only goal was to go to college, which he did, and
unfortunately nobody knows what happened."
Jose had a 4.0 grade-point average at Rice University prior to his disappearance.
As president of the Tri-city Indian Association, Baswa has been helping the family in their
efforts. Unsatisfied with the results so far, "It's very surprising, they don't know
anything other than he's missing," he said. "That's the only thing they know."
A lack of evidence and very few leads leave the case at a standstill, but the family is
not losing hope.
"At this point in time, we are pleading for assistance from the federal government
in the search for Reny," Reashma Jose said.
Hundreds of petitions to New York Sen. Charles Schumer and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
were signed at the event Sunday, to be added to the thousands already collected. The family
will be mailing them out shortly.
Local government was present Sunday for the walk.
"It is a very difficult time, not only for Reny's family, but of the entire community,"
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said. "Our thoughts, our prayers, our concern are with you,"
addressing the family. "We share your desire to bring Reny home, and we are walking with
you in unity here today, because that is what a Capital City does. It stands with its residents
in times of need, and this is a time of need."
Though information is scarce, going forward "We're just going to keep searching for
answers," Reashma Jose said. "As a family we will not stop until we find him."
10. Rachel Taylor. In the early 1940s at least one murder and
more than a half-dozen assaults on women around and about the State College campus of Penn
State had police running in circles and "co-eds" reluctant to walk alone on campus.
The Penn State mystery begins on March 29, 1940 when the body of 17-year-old Rachel Taylor,
a home economics major at the university was discovered near the campus by a school janitor.
Her head was bashed in and her body was "mutilated." Almost immediately, police were reminded of
another open homicide that occurred about 130 miles away near Tunkhannock, outside Wilkes-Barre.
In that case, the body of 19-year-old Margaret Martin was found nude and trussed in a burlap
sack. She had been tortured in a similar manner. At the time police blamed Margaret's murder
on "white slavers" who were forcing young women looking for honest work to become prostitutes
in "disorderly houses." In some cases the girls accepted the offer voluntarily,
while in others the girls were subjected to threats and physical violence. The way Margaret
was lured to a job interview was similar to how other girls reported being accosted by
the pimps.
When Rachel's body was found near State College, Margaret's murder had not been
solved, and at first police believed the white slavery ring had simply moved west. Besides
the mutilation, and the similarities in age between the victims, there was little to link
the murders of Margaret and Rachel.
A New Jersey resident who came to Pennsylvania as one of the 1,000 women on the 6,000-student
PSU central campus, Rachel was known as a shy, studious girl who was pleasant, but who
generally kept to herself.
She had returned from Asbury Park to State College late on March 28, getting off the
bus at 1:21 a.m., according to the driver. Rachel apparently encountered her killer while
walking the half-mile from the bus stop to her dormitory. Her friends insisted that she
must have known the person who killed her because she was found four miles off her route,
and was not the type of person to accept rides from strangers.
The autopsy revealed that she had eaten shortly before she died, which strengthened the argument
that she knew her killer. There were no restaurants open at that time near where she was dropped
off and where she died.
Rachel's wristwatch was stopped at 3:15 a.m., but it is unclear whether that was because
it ran down or was damaged in the attack that killed her.
In the days after Rachel's murder, police inspected more than 900 cars in and around
the campus, looking for one that was bloodstained. They were unsuccessful. They then turned to
the Penn State intrafraternity council, asking the heads of each fraternity on campus to
report anyone who was "absent without explanation" from 1 a.m. until dawn on March 29. At the
time half of Penn State's 5,000 male students belonged to a fraternity.
Police found a bloodstained handkerchief at the crime scene, as well as a man's footprints
in the snow, but those leads never panned out.
Eventually, authorities abandoned the theory that Rachel knew her killer when interviews
with as many friends as they could find led nowhere.
"Of course, there's nothing definite on (the theory that she had been forced into
the car), but we've questioned all of her friends, including the boys she knew, and
they didn't pick her up," detective Wilbur F. Leitzell told the press. "But we're
certain an automobile was used by the slayer."
Nearly a year passed with no progress in the investigation of Rachel Taylor's murder
when it appears the State College stalker struck again. This time, the victim survived.
On March 21, 1941, Lena Waite was slugged from behind while she walked on a State College
street. Three days later, Grace Gray was similarly assaulted and knocked down. On June 12, 1941,
Mrs. Ernest J. Teichert was struck down while she was in her garage and dragged down an
embankment. Her assailant fled when he was spooked by a noise.
A month later, 21-year-old Katherine Breon got the first glimpse of the stalker when
she was assaulted on the streets of State College. The only description she could provide,
however, was that he was "clad in a shirt and dark trousers."
The attacks appeared to move east after Katherine's assault — back toward Wilkes-Barre. On August
2, 1941, Emily Williams, a 28-year-old student at State Teachers College in Lock Haven, Penn.,
about 30 miles east of State College, suffered a fractured skull when she was struck from
behind by an unidentified male attacker. She was walking home from the movies when the
man came up behind her and hit her with a blunt object.
The investigation turned up a pair of similar attacks in Lock Haven around the same time
that the State College stalker was clubbing women there. A 17-year-old girl was hit from
behind on June 23, 1941, and on June 16, 26-year-old Dorothy Orner suffered a like assault.
As quickly as they began, the attacks stopped. Police surmised that the stalker either moved
away or was drafted when World War II began. Regardless, neither Rachel's nor Margaret's
killings were ever solved, and no one was ever charged with any of the assaults.
As for the Wilkes-Barre "white slavery ring," like so many other stories, news of the world
at war blew that off the front pages forever.
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