NY NY - Brenda Crowley, 16, Staten Island, 1 March 1979

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Hey, everyone. Not really sure how to get started here. I'm Lizzi, and I want to make some headway on this situation for my aunt.

Brenda is the baby sister of my Aunt Dorothy. Their sister Ruthann recently passed away and it has brought Brenda back to the forefront of my mind pretty hard (she was missing a few years before I was born, so I have never met her obviously). Dar has been only of the only people in my life to really "get" me and we have a bond that has always transcended any family drama (and we are people from SI. There is plenty. Ha). This is something that has always eaten at her and I want to see it fixed before she is gone.

I see there hasn't been much activity here, but if someone can get me started on how I can track down information on the links given here, I would be more than willing to start doing some legwork on anything that has been found. Just need to know a good jumping off point - I'm new at this. I can always ask Dar for any other information that isn't already here, although I don't think there is anything that she knows that is any "newer" than the situation when it happened.

I have been considering getting her a DNA kit, because perhaps her DNA can lead us to Brenda - if Brenda is still alive maybe she has done her DNA, or her possible kids/grandkids have, right?

I'm off to dig into how to start scouring Missing Persons cases and Unidentified persons and so on. I've got decades of watching it done in documentaries and series and everything else. Time to see if its been for any use.

Its time to find Aunt Brenda and bring her home.
 
Brenda Crowley

Age 16
Race White
Sex Female
Location Staten Island, New York
Disappeared February - March, 1980
Missing for 40 years
Height 5'4 - 5'6
Weight 110 - 130 pounds
Classification Suspected homicide''

''Brenda Cecilia Crowley, also known by the alias first name "Colleen" and the surnames "Star" and "Lee" was a teenage girl who disappeared from Staten Island, New York sometime in early 1980.

Case
Crowley stopped going to school sometime in early 1980, but was not reported missing until 1994 by her sister. Allegedly, her mother and stepfather were alcoholics, and her mother was murdered a year after Crowley vanished. All of the children in the household had histories of running away.

A relative stated in 2008 that Crowley's body was behind a residence in East Islip. No remains were found at the site, however.''

 
HKTIsh said:
Hey, everyone. Not really sure how to get started here. I'm Lizzi, and I want to make some headway on this situation for my aunt.

Brenda is the baby sister of my Aunt Dorothy. Their sister Ruthann recently passed away and it has brought Brenda back to the forefront of my mind pretty hard (she was missing a few years before I was born, so I have never met her obviously). Dar has been only of the only people in my life to really "get" me and we have a bond that has always transcended any family drama (and we are people from SI. There is plenty. Ha). This is something that has always eaten at her and I want to see it fixed before she is gone.

I see there hasn't been much activity here, but if someone can get me started on how I can track down information on the links given here, I would be more than willing to start doing some legwork on anything that has been found. Just need to know a good jumping off point - I'm new at this. I can always ask Dar for any other information that isn't already here, although I don't think there is anything that she knows that is any "newer" than the situation when it happened.

I have been considering getting her a DNA kit, because perhaps her DNA can lead us to Brenda - if Brenda is still alive maybe she has done her DNA, or her possible kids/grandkids have, right?

I'm off to dig into how to start scouring Missing Persons cases and Unidentified persons and so on. I've got decades of watching it done in documentaries and series and everything else. Time to see if its been for any use.

Its time to find Aunt Brenda and bring her home.
Click to expand...

Hi, and thank you for posting! I have had interest in Brenda's case for a long time; her case is how I got into missing persons.

I think the key is to find out if she was actually missing from Staten Island or Long Island. Around the time they did that dig at her father's former home, there was a thread on another site where people were saying they had lived near that house as kids and they remembered Brenda living there. I'm just not sure if that was right before her disappearance or maybe even after? Or maybe even way before when it wouldn't be relevant.

But news articles said that a family member of Brenda's gave police a tip to look on that property... which makes me think she was there on Long Island around that time.

If that's the case, it might be possible for the police there to take the case over, since it sounds like NYPD hasn't been too helpful.

Just my thoughts on it. I'm originally from SI too.
 
Odyssey said:
I think the key is to find out if she was actually missing from Staten Island or Long Island.
Click to expand...

As far as the family I'm in touch with knows, its Staten Island. They've heard the same rumors that she was seen in LI but have nothing to really back it up either way.

Odyssey said:
But news articles said that a family member of Brenda's gave police a tip to look on that property...
Click to expand...

And none of the siblings know what relative this is - no one would give that information - however since the police did actually do all that digging, we can assume the mystery relative is at least considered somewhat credible, right?

I grew up on that Island most of the time, and honestly the cops there are absolutely worthless. The wrong man is still sitting in prison for my own mom and brother's 1993 murders on the island, and it was so obvious from day one but no one listened. Insert whatever forum appropriate eyeroll goes here.
 
HKTIsh is now verified as a family member.

As a verified insider, HKTIsh may post what they know or opine without providing MSM links to back up “facts”. Other members may assign whatever weight they deem appropriate to those posts, using their best judgment and giving it as much weight as they think it is worth.

All other members must provide links to substantiate what they claim to be fact, or make it clear it is only their personal opinion (MOO, JMO, IMO).

Thank you all for being here to discuss Brenda's case.
 
I just want to thank everyone for the work that has already been done. I've dug into every link here, and the most promising being the article in 2010 with age and name matching does show the hands of that Brenda Crowley in the photos and they belong to an African American lady, so its an unfortunate coincidence for this case. All of the others had something too glaring that didn't match (4-5in difference in height, wrong eye color, or the teeth were too straight in the photos).

I sat in therapy for an hour today asking my therapist why there isn't a centralized database for this. Something as simple as a custom SFDC object to list basic facts for every UID, in each state if a countrywide one would be too cumbersome. UID could even be mass uploaded in a simple .csv file. Then a simple report could be run to show which UIDs fit which search parameters. It really SHOULD be that easy, and its not. I'm going to be doing some digging and see if I can find out why something like that hasn't been created or if it has and I just haven't found it yet, and how difficult it would be to at least start the csv file for it until a program could be found that could use it cheaper than the one I am familiar with (SFDC).
 
Brenda's NamUs profile was modified yesterday. She currently has 18 rule outs. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
UP5703 02/10/2003 New York NY
UP8419 01/16/2001 Isle of Wight VA
UP10229 02/14/1988 Westchester NY
UP4790 04/24/1981 Miami OH
UP6629 02/03/1991 Frederick VA
UP8579 01/25/1981 Hanover VA
UP12683 06/06/2014 Newport News VA
UP6661 02/03/1991Stafford VA
UP6796 11/18/1985 Alleghany VA
UP6642 08/07/1986 Chesterfield VA
UP1567 06/01/1987 Knox TN
UP6665 05/14/2007 Petersburg VA
UP8493 12/06/1993 Fairfax VA
UP6259 04/22/1981 Lawrence OH
UP2512 06/07/1979 San Bernardino CA
UP2512 06/07/1979 San Bernardino CA
UP6249 11/14/1980 Rockingham VA
UP5166 06/20/1979 Perry PA


Hoping her case can be solved - even she is dead or alive. Reading about her upbringing, it makes me sad.
 
q64ceo said:
The first scream that came out of my mouth when I saw the morgue photo (being 100% serious here) was "Oh my God, that's Brenda Crowley!"

WARNING MORGUE PHOTO

It's her!

(Link to JD's Doenetwork page)
Click to expand...

Brenda Cecilia Crowley​

  • brenda_cecilia_crowley_1.jpg
  • brenda_cecilia_crowley_2.jpg
  • brenda_cecilia_crowley_3.jpg
Brenda, circa 1980; Brenda, circa 1978
 
Thank you Bagpus for the blow-up. Brenda and the JD look so close. But the nose...it's just quite a bit off. Brenda's nose is quite a bit thicker than JDs. I really wish it was her, but really, I can't say that it is now. They so look like they could be sisters.
 
q64ceo said:
The first scream that came out of my mouth when I saw the morgue photo (being 100% serious here) was "Oh my God, that's Brenda Crowley!"

WARNING MORGUE PHOTO

It's her!

(Link to JD's Doenetwork page)
Click to expand...
I see the resemblance. According to the Doe Network they both have DNA available. They’re not excluded in NamUs though. I say it’s worth submitting!
 
q64ceo said:
Thank you Bagpus for the blow-up. Brenda and the JD look so close. But the nose...it's just quite a bit off. Brenda's nose is quite a bit thicker than JDs. I really wish it was her, but really, I can't say that it is now. They so look like they could be sisters.
Click to expand...
I flipped the other PM photo and looking at their profiles they look very similar to me!

ETA: GRAPHIC WARNING




















5F9A864C-BF35-4059-BB4C-A21A513EA412.jpeg287DAE2B-0BF1-44E3-86B5-34608539ACB0.jpeg
 
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