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

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

I live in PA about 15 minutes outside of Philly and about 15 minutes from NJ and this is the first I heard of this case. I can't see this woman taking off and leaving her child (at least from what I read).

I live in the same town as Danielle, and I heard about this story on the news and in the papers early on. Unfortunately, as time goes on, there is less and less. I agree that Danielle probably wouldn't have voluntarily left her child. Something is very wrong. I don't believe that there was any type of accident. I don't know how to put this ... sadly, I think that this story concluded very shortly after it commenced. I think that it is just now a matter of putting the pieces together to bring this couple back home to their families.

 

[Rachael]

I actually do not watch the local news or read local papers that often. It seems missing adult cases do not get the media attention that they should. Any missing person should get media attention.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

I actually do not watch the local news or read local papers that often. It seems missing adult cases do not get the media attention that they should. Any missing person should get media attention.

I agree, especially in a case like this one. This wasn't one person disappearing; it was two. And with children at home and no activity on their accounts, more likely than not, something is seriously wrong.

 

[PoorPaulaNNJ]

Missed Persons

cold case: Donna Valente realizes her cousin Richard Petrone and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo, may have died after leaving Abilene in February, but she continues to search for clues.
Photo By: Manuel Dominguez Jr

Holding out faint hope, friends and family search for a couple that vanished.

by Mike Newall
​

On Feb. 19, Richard Petrone and his girlfriend, Danielle Imbo, enjoyed a casual Saturday night of drinking at Abilene on South Street. The couple was joined by Petrone's childhood friend Anthony Valentino and his wife, Michelle. A pleasant night out, everybody was happy and laughing. There were no confrontations. No arguments. Just discussing music and telling stories from when Richie and Anthony were kids.

Shortly after 11:30 p.m., Petrone and Imbo stood to leave. They said they had only a short walk to their car and were heading back to Imbo's home in Mount Laurel, N.J. Petrone hugged Valentino, said he'd talk to him tomorrow, and then he and Imbo walked into the cold night air, blending into the South Street crowd. They have not been seen or heard from since. The cops have no leads.

Donna Valente is a realist. She accepts that her cousin Richie is probably dead. But there is always hope, and on a recent warm Saturday morning, Valente led yet another search party for the missing couple.

"They are out there somewhere," she says in a tired voice while loading fliers and bottled water onto a folding table outside Abilene. "We won't stop until we bring them home."

Ostensibly, the aim of the day's search, which will travel to Pennsauken to comb some woods along the Delaware River, is to find a lead, any lead. Richard's black 2001 Dodge Dakota pickup, maybe. Or Danielle's cream-colored sweater. A washed-up license. A shoe. Something. Anything. But it's unlikely evidence will be found. Police have searched by land, air and sea from the Jersey Shore to Delaware County. They have found absolutely nothing.

Still, the search will keep the media's glare on the case. It has so far garnered a good amount of attention, including spots on America's Most Wanted, CNN and MSNBC, but as time slips away, so does interest and the chance of a random tip leading to a break in the case.

The couple's disappearance reads in the style of a one-hour TV police drama. Danielle's estranged husband, Joseph Imbo, allegedly made repeated threats against Petrone. And, just days before the disappearance, Danielle reportedly told Joseph Imbo and Petrone that she wanted space from both of them. Imbo says he has taken and passed a lie-detector test with the Mount Laurel Police Department, but since any results would be confidential, his assertion could not be verified.

"Right now anyone with any relationship to the subjects is being questioned and looked at," says Philadelphia Police Sgt. Tim Cooney of the South Detective Division, which has six officers working the case full time.

Two weeks ago, a psychic informed the Petrone family that Richie and Danielle's bodies were underneath the Walt Whitman Bridge. The psychic then called the Imbo family and told them Danielle was alive and trapped under the bridge in a freight car. Petrone left Danielle for dead, she said. The police conducted a search and found nothing.

"It was cruel," says Valente. "It freaked Danielle's family out. They thought she was alive and coming home."

On South Street, news crews film Valente and other volunteers as they pass out fliers and try to recruit people for the search party. Most passersby take the fliers, nod politely and keep walking, adding a step or two to their gait. One rheumy-eyed little man with broken teeth and gin on his breath mumbles after he's told the search is not a paying gig. A gray-haired man with a ponytail waves his hand haughtily and shouts, "The world is overpopulated enough already for Chrissakes."

Valente doesn't catch the man's invective but seems disappointed by the small amount of volunteers who have showed up. "We can't do this alone," she says, deflating her shoulders as a crowd of laughing, tattooed teenage boys push past. "We need help."

Petrone's friends stand outside Abilene and describe the missing couple to reporters. Petrone is a doting father to his 14-year-old daughter, Angela, and a lover of hockey, NASCAR and Bruce Springsteen. He and Imbo were dating for a year, although they have known each other since high school in Cherry Hill. Imbo, 34, is petite and pretty and sang in a rock cover band until her son was born two years ago. Petrone, 35, plans to take over the family bakery. Imbo has a lucrative job for a mortgage company. Nobody, including the police, think they abandoned their lives and ran off by themselves. And a random crime doesn't fit either.

"Normally in a random crime, we'd find some type of evidence," says Cooney. "However, there is nothing normal about this case."

The staging ground for the search is a pebble parking lot on the banks of the Delaware River about two miles north of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The group will fan out across the banks of the river in the chance that any evidence discarded in the river might have washed ashore. There are 12 volunteers now, and the news cameras have also made the trip. The early afternoon sun shines hot. A warm breeze blows off the river. A train steams by. Dogs bark. Soon, the group heads south along the train tracks. Recent rains have left the banks flooded and many of the entrances to the river are impassable. After three-quarters of a mile, a clearing leads to an expanse of small dunes surrounded by baby birch and oak trees. In the dunes lay the wrecks of abandoned cars, some still smoldering, but none are Petrone's.

Shortly after 3 p.m., volunteer Karol Anne Moscufo, a nurse from Burlington, N.J., inspects a small stretch of riverbank. The muddy trash- and bramble-filled water gently laps against the shore. The industrial skyline of the lower Northeast fills the horizon. Moscufo spots a bone floating in the tide. She calls over other volunteers, including Valente and Dave Swint, an off-duty cop from Willingboro, N.J., to inspect the find. It is too thin a bone to be human, they all agree, and is most likely the remains of a bird or cat.

The afternoon sun beats on, and soon the search party winds down.

"The possibilities of where they could be are endless," says Valente on the trek back to the car. "But we'll keep trying."

For information about upcoming searches go to www.richardpetrone.com or www.danielleimbo.com. A $60,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the couple's safe return. Friends and police ask anybody with information about the case to call 215-546-TIPS

http://citypaper.net/articles/2005-04-14/cb.shtml

 

[PoorPaulaNNJ]

March 25, 2005 — In the days before Danielle Imbo disappeared last month, she told both her boyfriend and her estranged husband that she wanted space from each of them.

​

Since Imbo and her boyfriend, Richard Petrone Jr., both 34-year-olds with children, went missing after drinks at a Philadelphia bar on Feb. 19, police have been confounded by the disappearance.

In interviews this week with The Associated Press, a picture emerged of her as a deeply conflicted woman and of both Petrone and Joseph Imbo Jr. as scorned men.

"I hate to say this because I won't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but she didn't want to be with either of them," said Dawn DeSimone, who has been a friend of Danielle Imbo's since they met at Cherry East High School nearly 20 years ago.

Philadelphia Police Sgt. Tim Cooney said he is aware of the entangled relationships.

"We would be negligent if we didn't" investigate whether either of the men may be behind the disappearance, Cooney said. But police have not named or ruled out any suspects in the case.

Joseph Imbo Jr. said he took a police lie-detector test - and passed. Imbo Jr. said that in March 2004, he moved out of the Mount Laurel home he shared with his wife and their son, Joseph Imbo III, who was then 8 months old. He became involved with a woman he had met on a trip to the Super Bowl in Houston a little over a month earlier.

By May, Danielle Imbo was dating Petrone, the brother of one of her longtime friends. He had moved from Ardmore to South Philadelphia to be closer to his teenage daughter, worked long hours in his family's pastry shop and sometimes traveled to see NASCAR races.

The never-married Petrone's feelings for Imbo were stronger than her feelings for him, friends said. "My son would have been very, very lucky to end up with her," said Petrone's mother, Marge. "It was my dream to see them end up together."

But that was never Imbo's dream, two of her friends said. "'He's a really great guy, but a little rough around the edges.' That was her line to me," said Jeanette DeAngelo, Danielle Imbo's friend.

Petrone gave Imbo space when she asked for it, friends and family say, but she didn't have the heart to end their relationship because he was so kind to her and she did not want to hurt him.

Joseph Imbo Jr. said he did not like his wife dating the other man but he and others said the two never met in person, but they did talk on the phone.

Marge Petrone said Joseph Imbo Jr. called her son many times and made threats. Imbo, 33, gives a different account.

"Rich and I had some conversations on the phone two or three times," said Joseph Imbo Jr., who works for Cendant Mortgage in Mount Laurel. "Rich more threatened me than I threatened him."

Even as the Imbos' divorce was pending, Joseph Imbo Jr. and his wife initiated reconciliation efforts. But they never stuck.

In January, he moved briefly to Georgia to be with the woman he had met a year earlier. He returned after just 10 days to try again to win back his wife.

After that Danielle Imbo seemed very stressed, said DeSimone, who sometimes stayed at Imbo's home. The already thin woman kept getting thinner. After she put her son to bed, she would sit on her couch nervously chain-smoking.

By the middle of February, she decided what to do about the two men.

"Danielle called me the Wednesday before she disappeared," Joseph Imbo Jr. said. "She said, 'I want you to know that I'm no longer seeing Rich.' ... She said, 'I want to be by myself now."'

DeAngelo, who met Danielle Imbo when both worked at an Atlantic City casino in the late 1980s, said her friend had a clearer resolve around the time she tried to loosen her ties to the two men.

"She set a goal for herself to really save some money so she could get out of the condo and get a bigger place for her and her son," DeAngelo said.

Danielle Imbo, formerly a singer in a southern New Jersey rock band, was working for Cendant Mortgage out of her home so she could care for her son. She wanted her son and husband to have a close relationship, even when she did not want to reconcile with the man, friends said.

The afternoon of Saturday, Feb. 19, Joseph Imbo Jr. picked up the toddler for the weekend.

And that evening, Danielle Imbo had dinner with her mother and Petrone's mother and sister at a sports bar in South Philadelphia. Afterward, she met up with Richard Petrone Jr. and two of his friends for a few drinks at Abilene, a restaurant and bar on South Street, a center of nightlife in the city.

It surprised DeAngelo that Imbo would have gone to see Petrone after a phone conversation they had the day on Feb. 18. "She told me she was staying home all weekend," her friend said.

Petrone and Imbo left about the bar about 15 minutes before midnight. Their path from there disappears. Their cell phones, credit cards and bank accounts have not been used and Petrone's big Dodge pickup has not been located.

The searches have gone from Philadelphia to the New Jersey Shore. Sgt. Cooney said Friday that the search has widened in the last few days, but he would not say how.

Joseph Imbo Jr. has returned to the home he and his wife had shared. He is now living there and taking care of their son.

Relatives have appeared on national television asking for help and touting a reward, which now stands at more than $50,000. The family and friends have been careful, including in interviews for this article, not to blame anyone specific for the disappearance. "The Petrones are not pointing fingers in any direction," said Craig Mitnick, a lawyer working for the family. "They are just praying and hoping that law enforcement follows every possible lead."
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/032505_nw_missingpair.html

 

[PoorPaulaNNJ]

Link to interview on Nancy Grace show.

http://www.richardpetrone.com/files/ngrace.wmv

 

[Rachael]

This case is very interesting to me now especially since it's so close to my home. They say the husband was in Tom's River, NJ staying with his parents with his son. Tom's River is at the very least an hour or more away from Philly (maybe even closer to two hours). Would it be possible for him to put the baby to bed and slip out of the house without being noticed? He would have had to be gone for a least a 2-4 hours. I also wonder if the boyfriend (Richard) could have done something to Danielle (even by accident) and then took off. I hope that's not the case of course. I feel bad for the family especially after watching that clip from Nancy Grace.

 

[Rachael]

I have read that the break-up between Richard and Danielle was reported by a friend. Since they were out on a date that night that info may not be true. How long were Danielle and her husband estranged? I also read that the husband left Danielle for a woman he met at the superbowl. Was it this year (Superbowl is at the end of January) or last year? I don't know how true any of it is.. just wondering.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

Well, from what I've read & heard, Danielle finally realized that she just needed some time to be by herself. There are stories of Joe threating Rich, Rich threatening Joe, phone calls being made, Danielle & Joe trying to reconcile unsuccessfully a couple of times. Anyone who's ever been in that situation realizes that it gets old quick. I think that Danielle was probably a bit conflicted. Joe is her baby's father; Richard has always been very kind to her ... both have good reasons for Danielle to want to be with them. But it seems like it was probably a conflicted situation, probably fairly stressful, perhaps guilt feelings for Danielle, and she finally made what was probably the right choice - to just take some time to be by herself, and maybe evaluate things. The fact that she was out with Richard that night doesn't necessarily mean that they were still dating. They have known each other for a very long time. So perhaps they just went out as friends. Perhaps the one wanted to get together with the other to talk. Maybe after leaving Abilene's, they went somewhere to talk. In Philly, we've all done that - gone somewhere to park to talk or argue or what have you. A common area used to be near the airport in South Philly. Also a lot of spots along the river.

In any case, here is part of the time line as I understand it.

March 2004 - Joe Imbo moved out of the house he shared with Danielle. He became involved shortly thereafter with a woman that he had met at the Superbowl a little over a month earlier (in Feb. 2004).

May 2004 - Danielle began dating Richard.

Attempts were made between Joe & Danielle for reconciliation but it never worked out.

January 2005 - Joe Imbo moved to Georgia to be with the woman he had met at the Superbowl the year before. But after only ten days, he returned to try to reconcile with Danielle again.

February-ish 2005 - It is reported that Danielle made the decision to spend some time by herself. I don't know how long after making this decision she told the men.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

Link to interview on Nancy Grace show.

http://www.richardpetrone.com/files/ngrace.wmv

Thanks for this great link. As was mentioned above, Tom's River to Philadelphia is quite a distance. To go there, do something (and well enough that nothing has been discovered after two months), and return to Tom's River without being noticed - it seems impossible. And even if it is correct that the parents wouldn't "rat out" their son, in the link Paula gave us, someone mentions that there was also an off-duty police detective spending time with Joe Imbo that night. Does this make his alibi water-tight? Probably not. Yet somehow, I just don't get the feeling that Joe is directly involved. I could be wrong, and perhaps he is indirectly involved but based on what we know so far, it doesn't seem like Joe.

Unfortunately, if they were carjacked or God forbid, one of them did something to the other, they could have driven almost anywhere beforehand.

 

[wenchie]

Does it sound like Petrone may have used some kind of ruse to get her out of the house to meet him at the bar?

This sounds very bad to me. Men don't usually call each other up when they're seeing the same woman - at least not at that age.

Do their mutual friends have any theories about what might have happened?

 

[wenchie]

I'm sorry - I hadn't read the report above and didn't realize that she had gone to Philly to have dinner with her mother.

But I'm still confused. They are looking for his truck, not her car. Does this mean that her car was found parked on the street?


One report said that they were last seen on foot - and another one said that they were last seen in his truck.

 

[ktanne1]

This case leaves me scratching my head!

 

[JrZyChris]

This case leaves me scratching my head!

I don't know - since the very beginning there is a part of me that REALLY REALLY thinks they went off the road somewhere. I know this is probably NOT the case, but how do you explain two missing people AND a car? Usually the car turns up shortly after a person goes missing. Whatever the case, I hope something comes to surface soon for the poor families of these two.

 

[wenchie]

I don't think there's any way they could have gone off the road - UNLESS they headed somewhere besides back to Jersey.

The entire highway from the bridge to Mt. Laurel is densely populated with businesses....and I'm sure that any short stretches that aren't have been thoroughly searched.

I've thought long and hard for if there's any way a car could go off the bridge and can't think of one. And...the river is very shallow there, as far as I know.

And...it looks like her car was left parked in Phila.? How did she get there in the first place? The news I read said that she "met" her mother in Phila., not that she went there with her - so she would have had to have driven there.

Why would she leave her car there and have him take her home? They must have been headed for somewhere else. Maybe parked in one of the parks somewhere to talk.....and were carjacked/kidnapped?

 

[Rachael]

I can't imagine anyone kidnapping a man and a woman. I am sure it has happened before but it just doesn't seem all that likely. I also don't see many ways for a car to go over any of the bridges from PA to NJ (I have driven on all of them I believe) without their being damage to the bridge or without being seen by someone. I don't know how deep the Delaware River is but it is fairly long (from De to Philly). I know there used to be spots were you could park your car by the river at least in Delaware County but I am not sure about Philly or NJ.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

I can't imagine anyone kidnapping a man and a woman. I am sure it has happened before but it just doesn't seem all that likely. I also don't see many ways for a car to go over any of the bridges from PA to NJ (I have driven on all of them I believe) without their being damage to the bridge or without being seen by someone. I don't know how deep the Delaware River is but it is fairly long (from De to Philly). I know there used to be spots were you could park your car by the river at least in Delaware County but I am not sure about Philly or NJ.

There would definitely be evidence of them going off the bridge, IMO. But there are plenty of spots all over Philly where they could have gone to talk. The Philadelphia International Airport is, (I believe), just beyond the South Philly (Broad Street?) exit on I-95, and there were many spots where we used to park when we were teens and young adults. The spots were fairly secluded, and you could lie on top of your car hood, and look up at the dark sky to watch the planes on their descents.

I don't see a problem with Danielle leaving her car in Philly. If her & Richard were going to go back to her place, she could have just gone with Richard, and he could take her to get her car the next morning. Where was her car parked? Did she drive herself to Abilene's or did she meet Richard somewhere, (at his mom's house or her mom's house)? I'm sure that there are details that we don't know. At least, I sure hope there are.

 

[wenchie]

I just don't see why....if they were headed back to her house she wouldn't just go in her car and he in hers. Leaving a car on the street in downtown Philly overnight isn't a good idea, and in a garage it would be expensive.

I wonder if they've looked around the airport.....although, again: if they were just going to talk....her house wasn't really further than the airport, so why drive there?

The only reason someone would kidnap both a man and woman would be if it were a carjack and they didn't want anyone around to report it.

I don't want to speculate that he forced her to go somewhere with her....cause he is a victim too at this point.

I defintely don't think she would have left her car there if they were headed to her house, though. What a hassle...coming back in the morning for it, worrying about it being left overnight, paying for parking, etc.

It's all so very, very strange. The one thing I think everyone accepts is that they didn't voluntarily go off somewhere together and disappear on purpose.

 

[Rachael]

If Danielle was drinking she probably would have left her car in Philly with the intention of retrieving it the next morning. I don't remember reading anything about her car being parked in Philly before these last few posts. Maybe her mother or someone picked her up with the intention of Richard driving her home that night. This case is very odd since there are two missing people instead of one. If she had been driving by herself back to NJ that night I could think of many things that could have happened but what could possibly have happened to a man and a woman driving from PA to NJ? Maybe they got into a car accident and their car went off the road and has been sitting in a ditch somewhere.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

I defintely don't think she would have left her car there if they were headed to her house, though. What a hassle...coming back in the morning for it, worrying about it being left overnight, paying for parking, etc.

Has it been established that she drove her car into Philly that day or where her car was left? I don't find it at all unusual that she'd leave her car to drive with him. I've been in similar scenarios countless times.