SheWhoMustNotBeNamed
Former Member
Missing Since: June 12, 1984 from Lynbrook, New York
Classification: Non-Family Abduction
Date Of Birth: August 22, 1968
Age: 15 years old
Height and Weight: 5'4, 130 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Dark blonde hair, blue eyes. Morrissey has a scar on her forehead. Her ears are pierced. Some agencies give her eye color as brown.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: A pink sleeveless sweatshirt, jeans, white sneakers and a gold chain with a charm.
Details of Disappearance
Morrissey left a female friend's residence at approximately 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. on June 12, 1984 in her hometown of Lynbrook, New York. She was last seen walking west on Earl Avenue and Merrick Road shortly thereafter. She is believed to have been destined for Captain Video, a video parlor half a mile west of Merrick Road, but she never arrived there. Morrissey has never been heard from again. She had a part-time job at a shade and venetian blinds packaging factory at the time she disappeared. She lived with her mother, stepfather, siblings and stepsiblings, and rarely saw her biological father.
Authorities do not believe Morrissey left of her own accord. She had laid out the clothes she was planning to wear for the next day. She never picked up her last paycheck, which was issued the day after she vanished, and she left all of her money and personal belongings behind. She disappeared the day before she was supposed to take an important final exam at summer school. Morrissey had been experimenting with alcohol prior to her disappearance, was associating with older men, and sometimes broke her curfew, but her loved ones say she was no more rebellious than most teenagers.
One of Morrissey's friends, Theresa Fusco, disappeared on November 10, 1984, almost five months after Morrissey. A photograph of Fusco is posted below this case summary. Her body was found three weeks later, on December 5, about five blocks from her home. She had been raped and strangled. On March 26, 1985, several months after Fusco was found, another area teenager, Jacqueline Martarella, 19, disappeared after she left a friend's Oceanside home to go to her workplace at Burger King. Martarella's body was found on April 22 on a golf course.
Police are looking into the possibility that Martarella's, Fusco's, and Morrissey's cases are all related. All three women were Caucasian teenagers who were last seen walking alone in the evening hours. Both Martarella and Fusco were strangled and were found naked, their bodies dumped in open fields. Their clothing was never found.
Three men were convicted of murdering Fusco and served seventeen years in prison for the crime before they released after DNA testing cast doubt on their guilt. One of them was retried and acquitted of all charges; the other two are waiting for either a retrial or a dismissal of the charges. Prior to her disappearance, Morrissey had bragged that she knew one of the defendants in the Fusco case and even had the key to his apartment. Fusco's and Martarella's murders are unsolved, as is Morrissey's disappearance.
Foul play is suspected in Morrisey's case; she is presumed dead by law enforcement and her family. Her case remains unsolved. Authorities are not sure if it has anything to do with the two murdered women.
Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Nassau County Police Department
516-573-5336