PA PA - Richard Petrone, 35, & Danielle Imbo, 34, Philadelphia, 19 Feb 2005 - #1

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OriginalJerseyGirl

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CBS 3: Couple Missing For Weeks

Couple Missing For Weeks

Mar 3, 2005 9:46 am US/Eastern
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Police are asking for the public’s help in locating a couple whose families said disappeared more than a week ago.

Richard Petrone, 35, of South Philadelphia, and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo, 34, of Mount Laurel, N.J., were last seen Feb. 19 as they got into Petrone’s truck on South Street after leaving the Abilene bar and restaurant, Philadelphia police Chief Inspector Joseph Fox said Wednesday.

Airport parking lots, bus facilities, railroad stations and hospitals have been searched and there has been no activity on either Petrone’s or Imbo’s credit cards or cell phones, Fox said.

Investigators also have not located Petrone’s black 2001 Dodge Dakota truck, with Pennsylvania tags YFH-2319.

Anyone with information is asked to call police.
 
HOW CAN two people simply vanish off the face of the earth?

How is it possible that a couple in their 30s can leave a bar on South Street one night, and then just disappear?

For the last two weeks, the families and friends of Danielle Imbo and Rich Petrone have been struggling desperately to answer those questions.

But there are no answers. Just a mystery that is unbearable and unending

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/11058100.htm
 
mysteriew said:
HOW CAN two people simply vanish off the face of the earth?

How is it possible that a couple in their 30s can leave a bar on South Street one night, and then just disappear?

For the last two weeks, the families and friends of Danielle Imbo and Rich Petrone have been struggling desperately to answer those questions.

But there are no answers. Just a mystery that is unbearable and unending

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/11058100.htm
The estranged husband would HAVE to be one major suspect, but it hasn't been mentioned as such.
 
I think it may be one of those where LE is not releasing any info yet. Note not much is said by them.
 
A Birmingham, AL woman, after missing for months, was found last year inside her wrecked car deep in a ravine in a wide, wooded median of I-65. She had just "disappeared" one night driving home from the hospital after attending her grandchild's birth.

A few years ago a car full of college students "disappeared" in Florida during spring break. They were finally found inside the car that had run off the road in an accident and into a lake.

Maybe something like this is the case for this young couple?
 
LovelyPigeon said:
A Birmingham, AL woman, after missing for months, was found last year inside her wrecked car deep in a ravine in a wide, wooded median of I-65. She had just "disappeared" one night driving home from the hospital after attending her grandchild's birth.

A few years ago a car full of college students "disappeared" in Florida during spring break. They were finally found inside the car that had run off the road in an accident and into a lake.

Maybe something like this is the case for this young couple?

South Street is in Philadelphia (Im orig. from Philly/So.NJ so I knoe the area like the back of my hand) which is a big city.........no ravines! Also the only body of water is the Delaware and there is no way they drove a car into that! Its surrounded by cement/barriers etc)

Either they ran off to A.C or were lured somewhere and were killed there (poss. by someone they met in the bar)
 
This is the last update I could find. Not to sound pessimistic but I'm wondering if they went off the road someplace and they just haven't been spotted yet? There are few different ways to get from Philly to South Jersey from what I remember, having lived in Philadelphia before. I wonder if anyone has scoured the possible routes? It's a huge task to cover the highways, woods, sidestreets inch by inch.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/11058100.htm

P.S. How do I attach the link with my own title?
 
Hi Chris.

Can you cut & paste the important details from the article? The link requires a registration.

Even though there are different ways to get from Philly to S. Jersey, the only ones I can think of don't pose that much of a danger, IMO. The entire highway area from Philly to S. Jersey is pretty developed & very heavily traveled so I'm not sure that that would be likely.

From the bar on South Street, they probably would have taken the Ben Franklin Bridge or maybe traveled I-95 North, connecting with the Betsy Ross Bridge. Actually, I don't know that the Walt Whitman Bridge is all that far either and I'm not familiar with that route at all. But the first two bridges I mentioned don't seem to pose much of a 'driving off the road' danger, and even if they did, I think someone would have spotted them by now.
 
Code:
JerseyGirl said:
Hi Chris.

Can you cut & paste the important details from the article? The link requires a registration.
Hi There-

Here's the article. I must have registered back when I was reading up on Dodi Daughenbaugh - when I clicked it at work, it took me right there but now at home I had to log-in. Sorry about that!

Posted on Sat, Mar. 05, 2005
Couple's disappearance leaves families in turmoil

[size=-1]By SCOTT FLANDER[/size]

HOW CAN two people simply vanish off the face of the earth?

How is it possible that a couple in their 30s can leave a bar on South Street one night, and then just disappear?

For the last two weeks, the families and friends of Danielle Imbo and Rich Petrone have been struggling desperately to answer those questions.

But there are no answers. Just a mystery that is unbearable and unending.

"You feel like you're trapped," says Petrone's father, Richard. "Each day is the same. It's like you're in this awful dream, and you're caught in quicksand."

"Your emotions run wild," says John Ottobre, Imbo's brother. "You could sit there and speculate until you're blue in the face and make yourself crazy. But we don't have a lead, in either family."

As much as the families would hope it might be the case, they say there's no way the couple would have simply run off.

Both Imbo and Petrone, who had been dating for nearly a year, have stable, ordered lives, and children from previous relationships who, family members say, they would not have abandoned.

Imbo, 34, works for a mortgage company out of her home in Mount Laurel, N.J., so she can take care of her 2-year-old son.

Petrone, who's 35, works side-by-side with his father every day at the family bakery in Ardmore and recently moved to South Philadelphia to be near his 14-year-old daughter.

Ominously, the couple's cell phones have not been used in the last two weeks, and there has been no activity on their credit cards or in their bank accounts, the families say.

So what happened to the couple after they walked out of Abilene's bar and restaurant about 11:45 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 19?

Police in Philadelphia and New Jersey - where the couple were apparently headed - have launched an intense investigation, checking financial records, interviewing family, friends and neighbors, even searching the banks of the Delaware River by helicopter.

"We haven't found anything to indicate foul play, but all of our options remain open," said Capt. Joseph O'Brien of the Philadelphia Police South Detective Division. "We have several areas that we're pursuing. But we're not close to reaching any conclusions."

Says Petrone: "I think basically the police are at square one."

Anthony Valentino and his wife, Michelle McLaughlin, were the last people known to have seen Imbo and Petrone. They were all at Abilene's, on South Street near 5th, having a couple of drinks and listening to a band.

"It was a normal kind of night," says Valentino, who has been friends with Petrone since they were 10-year-olds on a South Jersey hockey team. "We were sitting by the bar, and when they left we just hugged and said goodbye. That was the last time I saw them."

Petrone's father says the couple had planned to spend the night at Imbo's house in New Jersey.

No one knows whether they made it there. There has been no sign at all of the couple or of Petrone's pickup truck.

"We don't understand how this could happen on South Street, where there are hundreds of people and no one saw anything," Petrone said. "And they were driving all the way on highways, main roads. Where did they go?"

It wasn't until the next day that the families realized the couple were missing. Rich Petrone had planned to come back to his apartment on Snyder Avenue near 16th Street on Feb. 20 to watch the Daytona 500.

Imbo had an appointment at 11 Sunday morning at a Cherry Hill hair salon, Petrone said. She had planned to return home after that to do mortgage work.

Her 2-year-old son, Joseph Imbo III, had spent the night with her estranged husband, and they had arranged for the child to be returned home about 3:30 p.m.

Petrone's sister, Christine, is a longtime friend of Imbo, and works at the hair salon where Imbo was expected. But when Imbo didn't show up, and didn't answer her cell phone, Christine grew worried.

Meanwhile, Petrone's mother, Marge, had been trying to call her son. He wasn't picking up the phone at home or answering his cell phone, which had been turned off.

"That was odd, because he almost never shuts his phone off," says Petrone. About that time, Christine called to tell them she couldn't reach Imbo.

"That's when we really started to get concerned," said Petrone.

Although Imbo and Petrone had not dated long, they'd known each other since they were 15.

Imbo went to Cherry Hill High School East, and Rich and Christine Petrone went to Bishop Eustice Prep, but the two girls knew each other and were close friends. And Danielle got to know Rich Petrone as well.

"Danielle was always crazy about Rich in high school, but he was into hockey," Petrone's mother recalled. Years later, he said, "I didn't even know she liked me."

After high school, Imbo had several jobs before going to work for a mortgage company, her brother said.

She got married about three years ago, and until she became pregnant, was the lead singer in a pop-rock band, the Schoolboys, which played at local bars.

She was, her brother says, following in the footsteps of their father, John Ottobre - known throughout Philly and beyond as do-wop singer "Johnny October." Ottobre led the Philadelphia-based group the Four Dates, which gained national popularity in the 1950s.

Petrone had worked at his parents' Ardmore bakery, Viking Pastries, since he was young and after high school, decided to join the family business. He went to the Restaurant School and became a master at making wedding cakes. His speciality is a shaved-chocolate cake, says his mother.

He had a daughter, Angela. He and her mother never married, and when Angela was 3, she came to live with Petrone in the apartment over the family bakery. He raised her by himself, until about a year ago, when she went back to live with her mother.

It was around that time that Imbo and Petrone began dating.

"They met up again and they clicked," Petrone's mother said. "They were happy."

For the past two weeks, members of the two families and dozens of friends have done everything they can think of. They've scoured the South Street area again and again for Petrone's truck. They've put up posters in stores, pizza parlors and motels from Philadelphia to the Jersey shore.

They've handed out fliers to people leaving events at the Wachovia Center, they've searched garages at the trains station and airport - on foot - for any sign of the truck.

Through it all, the families have had to find some way to make it through the day.

Marge Petrone says it's very hard for 14-year-old Angela.

"I don't think it's real for her, but then she'll see a poster someplace. It's horrible."

And she said her husband is having a difficult time as well.

"Just the other day he said, 'I may have to sell the bakery. I don't know how I can do it without him there.' "

Says Richard Petrone: "Every day I wake up and I hope the phone's going to ring and Rich is going to say, 'Dad, you won't believe what happened and what we did.' But if you're realistic, you know in your gut that something is wrong. You don't ever want to rule out hope, but it's not a bright and sunny outlook."

Marge Petrone says she holds her son's Bobby Clarke hockey jersey and thinks of him.

"I still feel him," she says. "That's how I get through the day."
 
I only know of that one ravine in Birmingham's section of I-65, and that's where the car went off the interstate.

In Florida, of course, there are an almost infinite number of lakes, ponds, swamps, etc

I'm not saying this couple ran off of South Street into a ravine or a lake, but I am saying it's possible they ran off a road somewhere in the Philly area and just haven't been found yet. It doesn't have to be that they "ran off" or that they were killed. It could be an as yet undiscovered highway accident.
 
Thanks so much, Chris. I feel so badly for their children, especially the 2 year-old who still needs his mommy so much.

Do you think it could have been a carjacking? If they would've taken the Walt Whitman, wouldn't that bring them to a really confusing bunch of roads? I can't remember, it's been so long. I worry that perhaps they got onto a road that hooked up with 5 other roads, and they took the wrong one, finding themselves in the middle of Camden. I'm not saying that people in Camden are all bad, not at all. But the crime rate, as you know, is very high. And it seems like there have been a lot of car-jackings lately.

Hmmm ... there's been a car-jacking story on the news over the past couple of days. I believe they said it was an older man driving his car. He was carjacked outside of an office building at Fellowship Road & forced to drive to an ATM. After that, they made him drive one of the highways here, (don't remember which), and had him get off at a specific exit. They made him get out of the car, and then they shot him. I believe that the news said that he's still in the hospital so this has to have been somewhat recent. So guess where all this happened? Here in Mt. Laurel. This is where Danielle also lives. Is it possible that they could even been car-jacked HERE in Mt. Laurel on their way to her house by these same guys? I hope Philly & Mt. Laurel police check it out. There are sketches of the suspects so hopefully they will catch them, and not find out that they harmed this couple as well. Since these events happened so close together, and one happened in Mt. Laurel, and the other is a woman who lives in Mt. Laurel, I wonder if there might be a connection?

Wow, I'm babbling. So sorry, I'm thinking through my keyboard!
 
I posted this link on the missing forum also. A website has been set up for Danielle at

http://www.danielleimbo.com/

It has links to all of the local news sites where we can keep an eye on updates. At first I was wondering about the boyfriend that she was with, but after reading your article JrZyChris, it sounds like he is a good man. Thank you for posting this.

Here's hoping they are found safe & soon
 
No......Philly is set up like Boston or New York City........its a big urban area.Its high rise buildings/stores/apartments etc.Theres no hidden areas .Its all metal,concrete and people.Even if they were on "The Blue Route" (highway connecting inner city to suburbs) They would be seen.Theres no where to drive off or ravines or like florida,all the little bridges and bodies of water.
If theyre from Philly Id find it doubtful they even had a car(most people in the city do not.I never even had a license to drive until we left Philly and I was 25!! I had no reason to drive because of the "L",the buses,trolley,cabs and walking.Also theres a BIG lack of parking!!!) but even if they did the scenario of an undiscovered accident would be like a car accident on Wall Street in NYC-it wouldnt be undiscovered for long(like 2 minutes maybe)


There was no highway accident.If this couple didnt leave of their own free will it is a case of foul play.
 
I went to the site that Indy provided and noticed this statement in the blog ...

"... Today has been crazy, yet amazing as well. Annette from www.netteradio.com came to my rescue. She took over my mess of an attempt to start a blog and is redesigning it so that it is easier to follow and interactive as well. She is an Angel, Danielle and all her loved ones thank you soooooooo much Annette. Let’s also not forget her amazingly efficient network of fellow musicians who are pitching in as well. Especially Jannel Rap www.jannel.org who will be organizing a benefit concert for Danielle. Jannel’s sister Gina has been missing for over 4 years from Lincoln, NE, and she has 3 children growing up without her. She has started 2 non-profits in her sisters honor: GINA for missing persons and www.thewarriors.org"

*************************************************************

Is Jannel a friend of Danielle's, I wonder, or is she just a fellow musician reaching out? If she's a friend, it's very odd that her sister has been missing for 4 years and now her friend is missing. I guess it can happen but are missing people that common for one person to know 3 people from 2 incidents without a possible connection?
 
JrZyChris said:
Code:
She got married about three years ago, and until she became pregnant, was the lead singer in a pop-rock band, the Schoolboys, which played at local bars.

She was, her brother says, following in the footsteps of their father, John Ottobre - known throughout Philly and beyond as do-wop singer "Johnny October." Ottobre led the Philadelphia-based group the Four Dates, which gained national popularity in the 1950s.
I wonder if there could be any connection to her or her father's singing jobs.
 
messiecake, this is from the link you posted to begin this thread:

Petrone's father says the couple had planned to spend the night at Imbo's house in New Jersey.

No one knows whether they made it there. There has been no sign at all of the couple or of Petrone's pickup truck.


Petrone owned a truck, and they were going to drive it the 17 miles to Mount Laurel, New Jersey that night to stay at Imbo's house.

There's no where in those 17 miles that a car could run off the road and remain hidden?
 
Hi. I lived in Philly for years. There are indeed areas where someone could "disappear" in a similar scenario as has been suggested.
 
LovelyPigeon said:
messiecake, this is from the link you posted to begin this thread:

Petrone's father says the couple had planned to spend the night at Imbo's house in New Jersey.

No one knows whether they made it there. There has been no sign at all of the couple or of Petrone's pickup truck.


Petrone owned a truck, and they were going to drive it the 17 miles to Mount Laurel, New Jersey that night to stay at Imbo's house.

There's no where in those 17 miles that a car could run off the road and remain hidden?
FYI L.P: I DIDNT START THIS THREAD!
From South Street in Philly to Mount Laurel..........I feel comfortable saying that they didnt run off the road.Its highly unlikely(if damn impoossible for that to have happened).For the record the article I read r/e said nothing about owning a truck .

Daliah...........

Im from South Philly so Im VERY curious as to where you are in Philadelphia that you think they could be hidden after an accident.........Is there a ravine on Walnut Street No one else has heard about but you ???
 
messiecake, the ravine in the median of I-65 in Birmgingham, AL was just an excample of how and where people in a car can "disappear" to and not be found for weeks or months.

Sorry that I "accused" you of starting this thread, instead of correctly naming mysteriew of that deed. There is a vehicle missing, though, and it's mentioned in the http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/11058100.htm article that started this thread: 2001 black Dodge Dakota pick-up truck license plate Pennsylvania YFH-2319.

I don't know what the rural areas of the Pine Barrens are like, or the geography along the Delaware River, but a helicopter has been used to search (to no avail) those areas for the truck.

Local Pair Still Missing
Billboard Ad, Reward to Attract Motorists
March 17, 2005 — A billboard will be going up offering a reward for a New Jersey woman and a South Philadelphia man who disappeared last month. Family members and police are desperate to get information about the 2 responsible parents who left children behind. --->>

Thirty-four-year-old Danielle Imbo of Mount Laurel and 35-year-old Richard Petrone of South Philadelphia disappeared nearly four weeks ago along with Petrone's 2001 black Dodge Dakota pick-up truck.

New Jersey state police have used helicopters to search rural areas of the Pine Barrens and along the Delaware River in hopes of spotting the truck but to no avail.
--->> http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/031705_nw_missigpair.html
 
Folks,

It is with much sadness that we are still in search of Richard Petrone Jr and Danielle Imbo. I am providing you with our web address in hopes that you can help me pass information along. http://www.richardanddanielle.com

I am new at this and not sure how it all works.
I am just trying to do my part for my cousins ( the petrone's) as they try to get there arms around this horrible situation. We do suspect foul play, but there is no evidence so we are at a deadlock with leads on finding them.

I also have an issue that I am hoping you can provide guidance on. We are getting a lot of folks who are close to the situation or not in some cases, that are making alot of commentary about the estranged husband. It there anything type of dialogue or language we should prohibit on the site?

Thanks,

dmv
 
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