Twenty-three years later, search continues
It's been 23 years since the little 11-year-old girl with brown hair and bangs disappeared without a trace from Scranton's Hill Section.
Investigators don't know what happened to Michelle Jolene Lakey, but they believe they know what she would look like today at 34 years old.
A composite photo from the National Center for Missing Children shows her in her 30s, still wearing her brown hair with bangs. Her smile makes slight indentations in her cheeks similar to the way it looks in a photo circulated 17 hours after she was reported missing Aug. 26, 1986.
Jolene's case remains open, Scranton Police Chief David Elliott said, and it's possible the passage of time could loosen the lips of someone with valuable information about what happened to her.
Jolene was last seen leaving Mercy Hospital after visiting her mother, Lois Dunham. She was supposed to sleep over a friend's house about a block and a half away from her home at Rear 1372 N. Washington Ave.
Jolene's case went four years without a major suspect, until state police received information linking her disappearance to Frank Osellanie, a former Scranton auto mechanic convicted in 1990 of raping and murdering 9-year-old Renee Waddle, also a Hill Section resident. Mr. Osellanie was never charged in relation to Jolene's case, but family members indicated she knew him and often visited his Walnut Street garage to play with his German shepherd.
During Mr. Osellanie's trial, police received a tip he had been seen with a young girl at Lake Wallenpaupack around the time of Jolene's disappearance. Police searched the lake for Jolene's remains, including two islands near Iron Wood Point. They also searched Mr. Osellanie's garages at Walnut Street and Kessler Court, using special radar to look for voids in the concrete floors.
Investigators also focused on a Brooklyn, N.Y., man, accused of raping a 14-year-old Scranton girl who had ties to Jolene, three months earlier. In September 1986, police searched his house after receiving tips Jolene may have been with him in New York. They found no evidence to tie him to Jolene.
http://www.scrantontimes.com/news/1.211375
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