Unsolved: Worcester

It's around 9:15 a..m. on Sunday, October 22, 2023. A call is placed to the Gardner Police Department. The woman on the line reports to police that her neighbor's four children have just appeared at her door. The children told her that they couldn't find their father, and that their mother was in bed crying. In under five minutes, first responders arrive at the children's home on Cherry Street in Gardner.  Upstairs, they find the body of 30-year-old Breanne Pennington lying in bed.  She had been shot in the head. Breanne's husband, Aaron Pennington, was nowhere to be found. He had fled the home roughly 30 minutes earlier. And he hasn't been seen since.  

Townsend, Massachusetts is a small town of less than 10,000 residents bordering New Hampshire.  Townsend is part of Middlesex County, but it borders the Worcester County line and the cases we explore in this episode may be closely connected to each other, and other unsolved murders from the same area and during the same time period. We again return to 1973 and the unsolved murder of 31-year-old school teacher Judith Viewig in Townsend. Then we move forward four years to the same small town and the disappearance of 13-year-old Deborah Quimby in May 1977. 

It's just before 9 p.m. on September 30, 1973. Jo-Anne Muldoon's parents arrive at her apartment on Intervale Road in Fitchburg after a call from a neighbor saying they could hear Jo-Anne's three month old son crying.   When they get to the second floor apartment, the door is unlocked. When the enter, the lights won't come on. The power in the apartment is out.   Using light from the flame of a cigarette lighter, the Muldoons find baby Christopher safe in his crib.   It would be their first and only sigh of relief.  They found their daughter's roommate Deborah Johnson dead on the sofa bed. In the kitchen, their daughter Jo-Anne was dead on the floor.  Both young women had been stabbed to death. Their throats had been cut.  More than 50 years later, their murders remain unsolved.

It's just after 12:30 PM on June 5, 1973. 32-year-old Maureen Moynihan and her 4-year-old daughter Jennifer have just dropped off Maureen's 6-year-old son Timothy for afternoon kindergarten in West Boylston. Maureen and Jennifer have a day full of errands planned. Roughly 24 hours later, Maureen and Jennifer's bodies were discovered along a dirt road in Rutland State Park. The mother and daughter had been stabbed to death. And their throats had been slashed. Maureen was found lying on the ground outside of her Ford sedan. Jennifer's body was on the floor of the front passenger seat. More than 50 years later, their case remains unsolved.  

It's Sunday morning, July 29, 2018. It's around 2:15 AM. A fight involving several people has broken out in front of a three-decker home on Sturgis Street. Witnesses told police a man came running from the side of the Sturgis Street home and rapidly fired several gunshots, striking two people: one a 28-year-old man, and the other, 23-year-old Jovanexen "Jampy" Rivera. The shooter fled the scene, leaving Jampy and the other man laying on the sidewalk…each suffering serious gunshot wounds. Minutes later, Jampy would be pronounced dead. It's been nearly six years and his case remains unsolved. 

It's around 9 a.m. on November 8, 1989. A heavy fog across Central Massachusetts is finally lifting and a tragedy begins to reveal itself. A retired construction worker is traveling along Chocolog Road in Uxbridge when he spots a large object along the road opposite of the Route 146 south bound exit ramp. He discovers it's an open sleeping bag, and it appears something is packed inside of it. Police roll back the front of the sleeping bag to find the body of 17-year-old Jessica Jones inside. Jessica had been beaten to death and stabbed multiple times.  Her body was stuffed inside the sleeping bag and dumped along Chocolog Road. Nearly 35 years later, Jessica's murder remains unsolved.  

It's Saturday night in Worcester. May 26, 2018. Memorial Day Weekend. Five teenagers are walking together along Holland Road, heading toward Main Street in the city's Webster Square neighborhood. At around 11:15 p.m., a vehicle pulls over on Holland Road. A man gets out of the car and fires 10 gun shots in the direction of the five teens. 16-year-old Sidney Krow Junior tries to run from the scene, but soon collapses in the road on Main Street. He has been shot. Thirty minutes later, Sydney is pronounced dead at a local hospital.  

It's been more than 30 years since 10-year-old Holly Piiranen was abducted and killed. Holly disappeared on August 5, 1993. Holly was vacationing with her father and brothers at her grandparents cottage in Sturbridge. She had last been seen by her father around 11:45 a.m., heading toward a neighbor's house to play with puppies. It wasn't until October 23, 1993, 11 weeks later, when Holly's remains were found by pheasant hunters in an Army Corps of Engineers flood control forest off of a dirt access road along Five Bridge Road in Brimfield.  

Thanks to contributions from many of our fans and followers, we're covering eight more unsolved cases this winter. Unsolved: Worcester Season 7 starts Tuesday, February 6.

May 16, 2003. Following a tip from a local hunter, part of a one piece, blue Nike bathing suit is discovered on Whiskey Hill near the Nenameseck Sportsmen's Club on Bacon Road in Palmer, Massachusetts. The finding launches a full scale, grid-by-grid search over three weeks along eight and a half acres of hillsides and wooded areas on both sides of West Warren Road in Palmer and nearby Ware.  In early June, the intensive search produced a second significant finding, a human arm bone. Days later, two more arm bones and a shin bone are found.  And then a femur, two rib bones and four vertebrae.  On June 9, 2003, investigators found teeth. That same day, Worcester County District Attorney John Conte announced the arm bone they discovered in the woods matched the DNA of 16-year-old Molly Bish.  Molly had been missing for three years.

It's around 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 10, 2023. It's a typical, cold January night in Central Massachusetts. Temperatures have dropped below 30 degrees.  35-year-old Brittany Tee is leaving her home at 18 Main Street in Brookfield. She's wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Before she leaves the house, she puts on a black winter coat and a pair of work boots.   Brittany makes sure she has her cell phone and wallet before stepping out.  Wherever she's going, she needs to get there on foot. Her car isn't running and needs to be fixed. Brittany takes a right onto Main Street and heads west toward Lewis Field and Brookfield Cemetery.  Where she was heading, no one knows. Brittany Tee hasn't been seen since.  

It's just after midnight on Saturday, June 2, 2018. A person walking south along Reservoir Road in Holden notices something along the tree line on the side of the road.  As the person moves closer to get a better look, he finds 22-year-old Lenny Valerio lying on the ground. Lenny had been shot multiple times. Blood stains the gravel beneath him. The passerby called police right away and Lenny was soon taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. More than five years later, Lenny's murder remains unsolved.  

It's around 4:45 AM. January 3, 2012. It's a windy morning and a chilling 25 degrees outside.  A motorist driving along Stafford Road in Wales sees something lying on the side of the road. The driver stops their car and immediately calls the police. The body of a young man, later identified as 23-year-old Cory Cane of Worcester, lies motionless along the south side of the tight two-lane Route 19. Cory had been struck by a passing vehicle. Police believe his body may have been left out in the cold on the side of the road for over 3 hours. Nearly 12 years later, and the fatal hit-and-run remains unsolved.

It's around 2 a.m. on March 4, 1984. The temperature has dropped below 10 degrees in Gardner, Massachusetts. Mr. D's, a bar and lounge in downtown Gardner, has closed up for the night. The parking lot in the back is empty, except for one car - a 1969 Pontiac Tempest - belonging to Holly Jean Cote. Holly had met friends at Mr. D's around midnight when she got off her shift at a local restaurant. When the bar closed, Holly was supposed to head over to a friend's house for a late night after party. But she never showed up. Three months later, Holly's naked body was discovered by canoeists near Birch Hill Dam in nearby Royalston. She had been strangled to death.  

It's around 6 p.m. Sunday, October 29, 2017. As heavy rain poured and winds howled in East Brookfield, Lisa Germain left her group of friends at Dunny's Tavern. Lisa's car was parked across the street from the bar.  One driver stopped to let her cross East Main Street, but the driver heading westbound didn't slow down. Lisa was struck by the speeding vehicle.  The driver fled the scene. Lisa would later die at Harrington Hospital from blunt trauma injuries. More than six years later, the fatal hit-and-run crash remains unsolved.  

It's around 2:35 a.m. on February 10, 2001. Worcester Police officers are called to 141 Chandler Street for a report of a shooting at a late night party. Five rounds were fired from a large, semi automatic handgun in a room on the first floor of the two-story home. As many as 50 people were at the party when the shots are fired. When police arrive, they find 22-year-old Juan Carlos Gonzalez on the floor, bleeding from two gun shot wounds. By the time Juan gets to the operating table at Saint Vincent Hospital, he has bled to death. 22 years later, his case remains unsolved.

Was it a poltergeist rocking the walls of a three decker home on Douglas Street? Did Worcester have its own haunted house? In early 1950, that's exactly what reporters from the Worcester Telegram and the Boston Globe were trying to figure out. The residents of 14 Douglas Street were more frustrated than scared, complaining of rattling windows, picture frames falling off the walls, radios whistling, and even a bed leaping off the floor. On May 12, 1950, the strong vibrating of the three-story structure could be seen shaking, as hundreds of neighbors stood in the street, watching what they believed to be something supernatural.   

Today's episode combines a pair of the most recent unsolved homicide cases we've explored to date on Unsolved: Worcester. 19-year-old Brandon Dirsa gunned down in broad daylight on Maxwell Street on Nov. 30, 2019.  Jazmin Rosario, just 5 days from her 18th birthday, is shot and killed outside of the Big Y on Worcester's West Side around 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 15, 2022. There is very little new public information available in both cases. There are more questions than answers right now. As of the time of this podcast, the unsolved murder cases of Jazmin Rosario and Brandon Dirsa aren't on the list of the Worcester Police Department's unresolved homicide cases.  

It's September 14, 1982. A call is placed to the home of Charles McArthur on Tarrytown Lane in Worcester's West Tatnuck neighborhood. Charles isn't at home when the call comes in. His daughter answers the phone. The man on the other line instructs her to tell her father to get down to the Italian Kitchen restaurant on Shrewsbury Street. When his daughter passes the message along, Charles hops into his prized Ford Thunderbird and travels straight to the Italian Kitchen as directed. His family would never see him again.

It's 9 p.m. on August 24, 2016. 26-year-old Jose Ortiz has just left his sister's home in Worcester's Bell Hill neighborhood. He's walking along Elliot Street, making his way to his job as a personal care assistant, when a minivan pulls up alongside Jose. The driver gets out of the vehicle. Witnesses say Jose and the unidentified man driving the minivan get into a heated argument in the street. The man fires a single shot into Jose's chest, hops back into the van, and speeds away.  Jose Ortiz is left dying in the middle of the road.  

Season 6 of Unsolved: Worcester begins in Worcester before we travel beyond city limits and highlight several unresolved homicides and missing person cases from Worcester County. The final season of Unsolved: Worcester will feature cases originating from Gardner, Uxbridge, East Brookfield, Holden, Upton and other surrounding towns.  We will explore the circumstances surrounding the 2023 disappearance of Brittany Tee from Brookfield and the season will conclude with the killing of 16-year-old Molly Bish in June 2000. Unsolved: Worcester Season 6 starts Tuesday, October 3.   

In this special episode, we are ending season 5 the same way we started: with the unsolved case of the death of 17-year-old Travis Monroe on October 1, 2006. We had the opportunity to speak with Travis' mother, Christi Berry. Christi provided us with further insight on Travis' death, including in-depth details on the 24 hours leading up to Travis' death, and why he left his family's home on September 30, 2006.   

In this special episode, we have the opportunity of speaking with Jordan Sears, founder and director of Cold Case New England, a website aimed at bringing awareness to the many victims of unsolved homicides in the region. Jordan is from New Hampshire and she started her research on local cold cases during the COVID-19 pandemic and officially launched Cold Case New England in November 2021.  Since then, Jordan has featured around 40 unsolved homicide cases from the New England area on the Cold Case New England website. We spoke with Jordan about Cold Case New England, how she chooses which cases she will feature on the site, hear her thoughts on the Main South Woodsman serial killer and what needs to be done in Worcester to improve access to cold case files. Visit coldcasene.org!   

Nearly 20 years later after the remains of Carmen Rudy and Betzaida Montalvo were discovered in Marlborough, and more than a decade since Alex Scesny's sentencing in the 1996 murder of Theresa Stone in Fitchburg, Scesny remains the only person of interest named in the Main South Woodsman serial killings. No charges have ever been filed in the deaths of Carmen Rudy, Betzaida Montalvo, Dinelia Torres, Wendy Morello or Linieda Olivera.  Their murders all remain unsolved.

It's the morning of September 13, 2004. Amanda Morello walks into the Worcester Police Department headquarters to file a missing person's report for her mother, Wendy Morello. It has been more than a week since Wendy was last seen.  Two hours after Amanda files her report with the WPD, 100 miles north of Worcester in York, Maine, a man taking an afternoon walk discovers a green 35-gallon plastic trash bin in the middle of the woods.  He lifts the lid to find the body of Wendy Morello stuffed inside. Wendy is considered the fourth victim in a string of homicides over a one year period, from September 2003 to September 2004. All the victims are women taken from the streets of Worcester's Main South neighborhood.

It's the middle of the summer.  Worcester. 2004. On July 18, just after 2 a.m., Andre Edmonds is shot in the chest and killed outside of the Lakeside Avenue apartment complex in Worcester's Columbus Park neighborhood. A month later, shortly after midnight on August 19, Sal Lopez is shot in the stomach and killed while sitting in a parked car with a friend on Hawley Street. Police believe the murders are connected, retaliating and violent measures taken by two rival gangs in Worcester. Nearly 20 years later, the pair of murders remain unsolved.

It's early in the morning, around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, October 12, 1982.  A crew of Providence & Worcester railroad workers are on the Boston & Maine railroad tracks that run alongside Interstate 290 expressway and Crescent Street in Worcester. As the workers make their way along the tracks, heading in the direction of Lincoln Square, they discover the naked body of 24-year-old Ethel Bosworh under the expressway overpass at Crescent Street. Ethel's body was badly beaten and mutilated. The mother of three young boys had never returned home the night before.  And more than 40 years later, Ethel's murder remains unsolved.

It's just before 2 a.m. on September 21, 2008. A fight that started at a nearby house party has spilled into the street at the corner of North Ashland and Dix streets. In the middle of the escalating brawl, William Smith, a 19-year-old Becker College freshman, is slashed on the arm with a knife. Moments later, as the chaos continues, William is struck again. A knife has been driven through his chest and into his heart. 15 years later, William's murder remains unsolved.  

It's Sunday, July 15, 1973. At around 3 p.m., the body of 56-year-old John Lund is pulled from under the rubble.  John marks the tenth victim from a July 11 fire that destroyed the five-story rooming house at 728 Main Street. It took demolition workmen more than 72 hours to recover John's body from the debris. The fire was Worcester's deadliest in its history. And officials believed from the start that it was arson. The fire was purposefully set on the rear second floor porch.  When the smoke cleared and all of the building's tenants were accounted for, the investigation into who set the fire was underway and the City of Worcester started taking safety measures in hopes something like this tragedy would never happen again. 50 years later, and Worcester's most notorious arson case remains unsolved.

July 11, 1973. It's described as "the worst night ever" in Worcester's Main South neighborhood. Just before 3 a.m., at the back of a rooming house at 728 Main Street, an arsonist sets a fire on the second floor of the five-story building's wooden porch.  The fire quickly spreads, engulfing the dozens of one-bedroom apartments and the tenants that live in them. 10 tenants died in the fire. 29 people were injured. It's the deadliest fire in Worcester's history, and 50 years later, the arson and murder case remains unsolved.

It's Monday, June 15, 1992 and summer has started early in Worcester. It's around 12:45 p.m.. Temperatures have reached a high of 75 degrees. Worcester's public schools are already dismissed for summer vacation and Main Street is buzzing.  Children and adults alike are outside in Worcester's Main South neighborhood enjoying the sunny weather, completely unaware of the dozen or so Worcester police cruisers heading their way.  A young boy walking his dog down Lagrange Street has just made an alarming discovery. At the corner of Lagrange and Main Streets, on a strip of lawn behind a Sunoco gas station, the boy found the body of 39-year-old Richard Gragowski behind a row of bushes among old mattresses and empty wine bottles.  Richard had been bludgeoned to death. His skull had been crushed. His body had been sitting there in the sun for hours.

It's 2:15 in the afternoon on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Temperatures have peaked, reaching nearly 80 degrees on an overcast day in Worcester.  Police are called to Early's towing on Park Avenue. A van had been towed to their lot minutes before. The smell coming from the van, and the hundreds of flies coming out of the van, convinced Early's staff to call the WPD. When police arrived, an officer climbed inside the van and found a plastic storage container under boxes of clothes, bags of trash and other junk.  The detective lifted the container's lid to find the body of 56-year-old John Sousa crammed inside.  John had been missing for more than a month.

You won't find the name Travis Monroe listed among the Worcester Police Department's unresolved homicide cases. On the morning of October 1, 2006, Travis' body was found lying in the road on Fales Street near the corner of Gunnarson Road in Worcester's Burncoat neighborhood. Travis' death certificate states the immediate cause of his death was blunt impact to his head with skull fractures and brain lacerations. The Worcester Police determined Travis' death to be the result of a hit-and-run. The state's medical examiner's report states the cause of Travis' death is undetermined. Travis' mother believes her 17-year-old son may have been beaten to death. For 17 years, the truth behind Travis' death eludes them all. And his case remains unsolved.

Unsolved: Worcester returns for Season 5 on Tuesday, June 13.  The penultimate season will shine a light on 10 unsolved murder cases, including the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old Travis Monroe in 2006, a two-part episode special on the 50th anniversary of Worcester's deadliest fire, and our first look at the sinister acts of the Main South Woodsman nearly 20 years later.  New episodes will be released every Tuesday. 

In today's special episode, we have the great opportunity of speaking with Bob Ward, reporter for Boston 25 News and host of New England's Unsolved.  Bob has been awarded multiple Boston/New England Emmy awards and a Massachusetts Associated Press Award during his extensive career.  Bob joined Boston 25 in 1996 and launched New England's Unsolved in early 1999. The show briefly ran as a podcast in 2017 and Bob received an Edward R. Murrow for his work on the New England's Unsolved podcast. Bob shares with us how New England's Unsolved got its start, insight on the 2006 death of 17-year-old Travis Monroe in Worcester, and tells us why he thinks cold case and true crime podcasts and shows attract such large audiences. 

It's the oldest unsolved murder case on file with the Worcester Police Department Detective Unit. March 11, 1951. 20-year-old Irish immigrant Sean Goggin is gunned down inside the entrance of a home on Fairhaven Road in Worcester's Burncoat neighorhood. Two men in trench coats, one wearing a handkerchief to cover his face, fired three shots into the Fairhaven Road home, with one bullet striking Sean in the chest and killing him. As Sean slumped to the ground, the men ran off across the front lawn, hopped into a car and sped away. More than 70 years later, the murder of Sean Goggin remains unsolved.  

What would you do if someone sent you a text message of a photo of the corpse of a family member or loved one? That's what happened to Carmen Rivera on Easter Sunday 2009. Carmen was on her way to Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester when she received a photo of her son, 25-year-old Luis Rosario, dead on a gurney at the hospital. Luis had been shot twice in the chest outside of a house party on Hammond Street. The photo of Luis dead at the hospital had been posted on social media with the caption, "Mission Accomplished."

Walter Palmer climbed one flight of stairs to the second floor of an apartment building at 16 Millbury Street in Worcester's Green Island Neighborhood. It's Saturday evening, August 5,1989, Palmer was surprising his friend John Riley.  The door to John's studio apartment was locked, so Palmer used his spare key. When he opened the apartment door, Palmer stood there in shock.   John Riley sat lifeless in his chair. A pool of blood was at John's feet. John was murdered. He had been stabbed 29 times

It's the middle of the summer. Worcester, 1987. 30-year-old Patricia Evans has just returned to the city after spending a month in a detox center in Springfield.  For over five years now, Patricia has been back and forth, in and out of treatment centers across the state. The constant battle with her addiction to drugs had taken its toll on the young mother of four. But leaving detox this time, there may have been some room for optimism.  But any optimism they may have existed, evaporated quickly. Just a month later, on August 8, 1987, Patricia was found dead in the empty apartment on the third floor above her family on Piedmont Street. She was strangled to death. 

It's around 2:15 a.m. on August 1, 2003.  Worcester's Main Street bars and clubs have closed for the night.  Kwaku Osei Owusu and four of his friends pile into his car parked at the corner of Portland Street and Franklin Street. A sports car pulls up suddenly next to Kwaku's black sedan. Someone in the sports car points a gun in the direction of Kwaku and within an instant, 10 shots are fired into the driver's side of Kwaku's car. Kwaku and the passenger next to him, 23-year-old Frank Vanney, are killed instantly. When police arrive, they find Kwaku and Frank dead in the front seats. The car is riddled with bullet holes.

It's around 8:45 p.m. on February 23, 1991. 28-year-old Bruce Wood and his 5-year-old son, Bruce, Jr., are walking down Chestnut Street in downtown Worcester. They're heading home with their dinner from McDonalds. Bruce Sr. got his son a Happy Meal. They're spending the weekend together. The father and son are about 10 minutes away from Bruce's apartment on Quincy Street when a man ran up to Bruce, stabbing him multiple times. The fatal stab through the heart. When police arrived moments later, officers found Bruce, Jr., sitting on the sidewalk, crying next to his father's body.

A ceremonial tree planting and plaque unveiling at Worcester's Arbor Day celebration is being held at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 28, 2023.  We encourage our listeners to join us at the event to help honor the lives of the many women victims of murder in Worcester, both solved and unsolved. Special thanks to Jennifer Hernandez, committee member on Worcester's Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, for joining us for this special episode.  

It's around 1 a.m. on January 13, 1993. Worcester Police officers arrive at the Public Inebriate Program, or PIP, shelter in Worcester's Main South neighborhood. Police are at the shelter to arrest James Earl Johnson…he's wanted for the murder of 42-year-old Vicki Lehtinen, whose body was found in the basement of a Pleasant Street apartment building just three days before. Vicki had been beaten and strangled to death. The last time Vicki was seen alive, she was leaving a Main Street bar with James Earl Johnson.

It's just past midnight on Sept. 22, 1992. Paulette Andrea pays her tab at Barney Google's, a neighborhood tavern on Washington Street in Worcester's Green Island neighborhood. She hugs her friends at the bar goodbye and exits the front door, taking a right toward Harding Street and Ellsworth Street. Paulette has about a 15-minute walk home to her apartment on Lawrence Street.  But she never makes it. About four hours later, a passerby finds Paulette's body face down in a sandbox at a playground at Crompton Park. She had been strangled to death.

It's around 6 a.m. on January 31, 1989. A maintenance worker at Anderson Tool and Stamping Company on Mason Street, is taking out the trash. When the worker steps outside and turns the corner onto the factory's loading dock, he sees the body of a young black woman laying face down about 10 feet away below the loading dock. The woman, wearing a black leather jacket and jeans, is covered in blood. Later that day, she would be identified as 23-year-old Angela Jones. Angela had been killed just hours before she is found her behind the Anderson Tool building. She had been stabbed multiple times.

It's the morning of October 23, 1984. Kathleen Viviamore wakes up in her family's apartment on Southgate Street. Kathleen looks in to check on her daughter, Patricia Ann Gonyea, who was supposed to come home late the night before from her boyfriend's house. But Patricia wasn't in her bed. She wasn't even in the apartment. Patricia was killed while walking home from a nearby bus stop the night before. She had been bludgeoned to death. Her body was dumped in a window well of a factory building on Grand Street, ust two blocks from her family's first floor apartment on Southgate Street. Nearly 40 years later, Worcester residents are still asking the same question: Who killed Patricia Gonyea?  

Unsolved: Worcester returns for Season 4 on Tuesday, April 11. The new season will shine a light on 10 more unsolved murder cases under investigation by the Worcester Police Department's Detective Unit. Season 4's episodes tell the stories of 10 unsolved homicides spanning 6 decades, including a string of unsolved murders of young women in the late 80s and early 90s, and the oldest unsolved murder case on file with the Worcester PD, dating back to 1951.

In early January 2022, 15-year-old Sue Paye ran away from her Worcester home. It's believed Sue packed her belongings and boarded a bus at Union Station heading toward New York City. The extensive efforts by Sue's family to find her haven't been successful and they haven't seen Sue or heard from her in over 15 months. In what will be the most recent case we explore over the six seasons of Unsolved: Worcester, Sue Paye's story will force us to ask a question for the first time this season…does the missing person even want to be found?

In early November 1998, five-month-old baby Marlon Santos disappeared. And for two straight days, Marlon's foster parents failed to alert the Worcester Police Department that baby Marlon was missing. It was around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 7, 1998, that Jose and Yolanda Castillo reported Marlon missing. The foster parents blamed not being able to find a babysitter for their children and two other foster children as the reason they delayed telling the police. Nearly 25 years later, the Castillo's 48-hour hesitancy to call the police may have erased any chance of baby Marlon being found.

It's mid-September 1982. The summer is winding down in Worcester and 27-year-old William Garlick and 33-year-old John V.J. Joyce, Jr. hop into William's 1980 black Corvette for a quick trip up north to Maine. But they're not heading to Vacationland for a late-summer getaway. The two men are on their way to collect a debt of $22,000, likely running an errand to collect money owed to a Worcester-born drug kingpin. The day after they leave Worcester, Maine State Police find William's corvette abandoned outside of a shopping mall in Bangor. William and John were never seen or heard from again.