NY NY - Patricia Shea, 40, Rockaway Park, 25 July 1982

Reward offered in 1982 unsolved murder of New York woman
August 11, 2014
FOX

Authorities are offering a reward for information in the 1982 unsolved murder of a 40-year-old woman and physician's assistant found murdered in New York City -- the possible work of a serial killer.

Patricia Shea was found strangled in Prospect Park, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, in July 1982, amid a string of similar cases that baffled the New York City Police Department at the time.

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New York City Police are now offering a $2,000 reward for any information on the crime, according to the website.

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Police Offering $2K Reward to Solve Decades-Old Murder Mystery
By Katie Honan on August 5, 2014 1:45pm




Shea, 40, was last seen on July 25 of that year in the parking lot of her apartment complex on Beach 107th Street and Shore Front Parkway in Rockaway Park.

She told friends at around 11 p.m. that she was going to check on an elderly patient who lived in an apartment building next to hers, according to reports at the time.

Her body was found the next day in Prospect Park and police said she was strangled with nylon rope, according to a 1982 story in the New York Times.

A man's shirt was found next to the body, which police said was being investigated as possible evidence. Police also said she was likely killed somewhere else and dumped in the Brooklyn park, according to the Times.

POLICE DOUBTFUL OF SINGLE KILLER IN 5 STRANGLINGS
By LEONARD BUDER
Published: August 14, 1982

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In connection with the murder of Patricia Shea, a 40-year-old physician's assistant from Rockaway, Queens, detectives are trying to track down a man whom a neighbor told them he observed in the apartment building about the last time the victim was seen.

Miss Shea's body was found July 26 in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. She had been strangled with a nylon rope. A man's shirt found near her body and detectives are trying to trace it.

The other victims were Sheryl Guida, 22, who was found in Coney Island on March 18; Rita Nixon, 21, a visitor from Portsmouth, Va., found July 15 behind a school near Chinatown, and Gloria DeLeon, 31, of North Bergen, N.J., found on Water Street in Manhattan.

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by: Mary Murphy May 12, 2023
'Debate surrounds 2021 mystery letter in NYC cold case murder
''Patricia Shea was 44 when she was found dead on July 26, 1982 near a horse-riding path in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, about 11 miles from her apartment building on Beach 107th Street in Rockaway Beach, so it’s very likely her evidence kit ended up in a Brooklyn storage facility.'

“She was found in Prospect Park on the Windsor Terrace side. She was tied in a very tight way, hogtied. The way she was bound, she could have strangled herself, trying to free herself.”

''Patricia Shea’s family said she’d gone with a platonic male friend to a reunion or wedding the weekend she disappeared. After he dropped her off at a side entrance, Patricia Shea said she was going to the next building to visit a neighbor, Agnes, who had suffered a stroke.

“We believe that whatever transpired happened at the elderly woman’s apartment,” Detective Simon said, “and then she (Shea) was removed from there and transported to Prospect Park, where her body was found.”

Queens detectives had earlier told Shea’s nephew that they spent three days in the stroke patient’s apartment, hoping she would offer some information, even though she had difficulty speaking.

“At some point, Agnes blurted, ‘The blonde man hurt Pat, the blonde man hurt Pat,” Kevin Shea said.''