0:00

Paper Ghosts is a production of I

0:02

Heart Radio. So

0:05

here's the only one that saw or anything. And I

0:07

decided all I was doing is going for a

0:09

gallon of milk. The

0:15

last time I spoke with Nancy McDonald, I

0:18

told her I would gather some photos of potential

0:20

suspects. Nancy,

0:22

is that neighbor you heard in episode one she

0:25

witnessed a station wagon blocking

0:27

the road and a man walking towards

0:29

the direction of Jane's pocket, the

0:32

seven year old girl who went missing while trying

0:35

to find a dead butterfly on the side of the road.

0:38

I wanted to know if Nancy would recognize

0:40

anyone in the photos. I

0:44

met Nancy at her son's house. We

0:46

sat across from each other at the dining room

0:48

table. I pulled out the photos

0:50

and began, one by one, placing

0:53

them in front of her. Among them

0:55

a couple of photos of randomly selected

0:58

men and a few suspects

1:00

who have been tied to Janice's case at

1:02

some point or another. So

1:04

here's the first picture. And I know it's not side

1:07

too, and it's not good, but you

1:09

know clear enough. Yeah,

1:11

here's a clearer one. Now

1:14

that's younger, he's younger. There than you would have seen

1:16

him. Nancy took about ten minutes

1:19

looking at all of the images, five in

1:21

total, pictures of men fitting

1:23

the description of the person she saw

1:26

that July afternoon in Vree.

1:30

She was focused and wanted to be certain.

1:33

Yeah, this guy did not have he

1:36

wouldn't have had that. He didn't always heat didn't

1:38

he didn't have it, and it wasn't wearing a

1:40

halt. The coloring

1:42

of his hair is about right. Nancy

1:46

picked one photo. She said

1:49

she recognized the guy's nose, hairline,

1:51

profile, and build.

1:54

It was Bob LaRosa. Then

1:58

I showed her several photos of vehicles,

2:01

and again Nancy picked

2:03

out only one vehicle from the bunch, Bob's

2:07

station wagon. It's

2:09

anecdotal, I realized, not science.

2:12

But it helps me to understand that every step,

2:14

every move I make to try to exclude

2:17

Bob lar Rosa only

2:19

brings me that much closer to

2:21

him.

2:26

Previously on paper ghosts,

2:30

Nathan was always known to be kind of at the back

2:32

of the house, kind of staring at the kids

2:34

playing. Lisa being one of them,

2:37

and Nathan was like obsessed with her,

2:39

would always watch her. If

2:42

my sister was to have gotten hurt, I

2:45

don't know one way or another. I hopefully it didn't

2:47

happen that way. But if anybody was to have done

2:49

something, I had have blamed Junior before I

2:51

had blamed Bob. Uncle. Bobby

2:53

was a dangerous man. So

2:56

claim that the girls were put

2:59

in the friend well. Yes, he

3:01

explained how to take a bar,

3:04

open up the well and then slide

3:06

it back. And we have that outworth. My

3:10

name is and William Phelps.

3:13

This is paper ghosts

3:18

Terry, what's going on? Holy

3:21

sh it? So you know my

3:23

sister's birthday. As

3:26

the summer headed toward an end, I received

3:28

a frantic call from Terry Shanks one

3:31

late afternoon. Terry

3:33

is one of Susan Lerosa's sisters. You heard

3:35

in episode three. She

3:37

posted something on Facebook to honor

3:39

her late sister's birthday in July, and

3:42

sometime after publishing the post, she

3:45

received a message from a woman whose

3:47

brother in law was best

3:49

friends with Bob Lerosa. I

3:51

never felt like this before in my life. I've

3:54

never felt this traveled

3:57

or freaked out in my entire

3:59

life. Ums

4:02

everything. I received a

4:04

lot of these leads, many I've left

4:06

out of this podcast because they'd

4:08

send you down an unnecessary

4:11

rabbit hole the way they've done to me.

4:13

Most I investigate and then they fizzle

4:16

out quickly. I remember my sister Susan

4:18

hung out to that guy. He's shoot up with him.

4:21

But as Terry explained, what was a sordid

4:23

picture this woman painted of her brother

4:26

in law, who he knew, and

4:28

where he lived. It fit

4:30

into the framework of what I had been investigating.

4:34

It felt like a line of inquiry. I

4:36

needed to follow, Hi,

4:41

Susanne, how are you

4:43

doing? Am I okay?

4:47

Until actually I feel a

4:49

little relieved, like carrying

4:52

this stuff in my brain for a while. Suzanne

4:57

St. Louis is the woman who reached out to Terry

5:00

Banks via Facebook. She grew up

5:02

on Crystal Lake, about a third of a

5:04

mile from the old LaRosa Home. Suzanne's

5:07

sister married a guy who she

5:09

recalls was best friends with

5:11

Bob Larrossa during the late sixties

5:13

early seventies. Her

5:15

brother in law was twenty when he groomed

5:18

her fifteen year old sister into

5:20

a sexual relationship. After

5:23

passing out one day in class, Suzanne's

5:26

sister realized she was pregnant. That

5:29

is actually sexual assault.

5:32

The guy was twenty. Suzanne's sister

5:34

fifteen a child.

5:41

Suzanne speaks with a stoic affect.

5:44

It's hard to read how she feels about

5:46

what she's saying. But when

5:48

I asked her what kind of a guy her brother

5:50

in law was, that question

5:52

fires up some emotion in her voice, and

5:55

there is no mistaking how she feels

5:58

and what kind of guy was he? Then? Because

6:00

thin kind of guy he died as come

6:03

back Peters a

6:05

wife, Peter a

6:07

drunk, never

6:10

worked, pretty

6:13

much an asshole. My sister was

6:15

definitely afraid of him, that I know. I

6:18

bring Bob Larrossa into the conversation.

6:21

Oh were they were friends for years? I think

6:23

they were friends before he ever even married my

6:25

sister. And what would they

6:27

do together? All around? Again, they drive

6:30

around together, go get wasted,

6:32

drunk whatever. My brother

6:34

in law used to steal stuff. I mean, you

6:37

know, we show up with stuff that you knew he stole

6:40

from where nobody knew. It

6:43

was August, two

6:46

months after Susan LaRosa went missing,

6:48

when Suzanne's sister and brother in law and

6:51

their young daughter moved to

6:53

Rockville, Connecticut whereabouts

6:58

in the corner of the village and War Street, So

7:02

right next to where Bob Larrossa

7:04

lived. Yeah,

7:07

it's a fact. Bob Larrossa lived Downward

7:09

Street, just around the block from the witness,

7:12

another one of his close friends who has recently

7:14

been talking about buried bodies

7:16

in water wells. Now

7:18

we have this new person of interest, the

7:21

violent brother in law, living within

7:23

one minute from both men, and

7:26

of course Nathan Rossa

7:28

just a ten minute drive away, living

7:31

across from Crystal Lake. Suzanne

7:33

says her brother in law's apartment was party central

7:36

weed booze guys

7:38

hanging around, and yes, lots

7:40

of young girls too. Would

7:43

they ever get perverted with younger

7:45

girls? Oh? Yeah,

7:48

give me an example if you can recall one.

7:51

My sister comfort of the nuss

7:53

and disappeared. And I was

7:55

there for the

7:58

entire summer to help myself, true

8:02

or your own daughter. But I was

8:04

helping her with and

8:06

when she had the baby, she'd

8:08

asked me to go over

8:10

to the house and pick up some stuff for her. She

8:14

went home to take a shower. Why, I was

8:16

getting her stuff ready and he come out

8:19

completely naked and

8:21

said, you want to have a good time, come on in the bedroom.

8:24

And what did you say? I

8:26

didn't say a word. I went out and sat in the

8:29

car. I was like, Nope, that ain't

8:31

happening. And

8:33

how old were you at the time? Thirteen,

8:39

the same age as two of the missing girls.

8:42

It seems to be the age most appealing to

8:45

this group of guys in their early twenties

8:47

who ran around a small town allegedly

8:50

forcing underage girls into

8:52

sexual situations. When

8:55

I think back to previous conversations

8:57

with law enforcement over the years, it

8:59

was died to me by one state police

9:01

detective that local law enforcement

9:04

has always been focused on a group of violent,

9:06

sexually perverted men exploiting

9:09

and violating young women in this

9:11

area, Men who did whatever

9:14

they wanted to whomever they wanted

9:16

and got away with it.

9:20

It's imperative to understand the motivation

9:22

behind sexual assault and

9:25

the evolution of how society has

9:27

viewed it. When you're investigating

9:29

miss in person cases and involving young

9:31

females, sexual

9:33

abuse and assault needs to be

9:35

part of that conversation. It

9:38

can play a vital role in the drive

9:40

behind abduction and murder. Also

9:43

offer perspective sexual

9:46

harassment, abuse and assault

9:48

is not about sex. It's

9:51

about fear, intimidation,

9:53

domination, power, control,

9:56

and aggression. And

9:59

the more we talk about it. The more

10:01

we understand it, the more

10:03

power we take away from

10:05

the perpetrator. Just

10:14

seven weeks after his wife Susan went

10:16

missing, Bob Larossa was coming around

10:18

Suzanne's sister's apartment, introducing

10:21

everyone to his new girlfriend. Susan

10:25

had already been forgotten and replaced. Think

10:28

about that. If you recall

10:30

in a previous episode, Bob

10:32

dispersed his three children just days

10:34

after Susan disappeared. I've

10:37

been told that he got rid of all her

10:39

belongings within seventy two hours

10:41

after she went missing. Now

10:44

he's bringing his new girlfriend around not even

10:46

two months later. Only

10:49

two scenarios are possible here.

10:51

The guy is either cold and heartless or

10:54

he knew Susan was

10:56

never coming back. So

10:58

was there any talk about her never? I

11:00

didn't even I didn't even make the connection

11:03

until years later. At the

11:05

time, I didn't even know she was missing. I don't think

11:08

I wondered if Susanne's brother in law

11:10

had ever mentioned Susan l Rosa

11:13

anything about her being missing. My

11:16

sister passed away into Thousand Kids,

11:19

and I was going up there to see her because she was

11:21

tired of cancer, and

11:23

I brought Susan Rosa up and

11:26

he got pissed. Tell

11:28

me about that? What happened? What did you say to

11:30

him? We were talking about people at the

11:32

lake and stuff, and they said something about

11:35

it, like I wonder what had that happened to Susan Rosa?

11:37

They never really found out. And he goes, oh, yes, guys

11:39

stopped bringing that freaking ship up

11:42

because I'm tired of hearing about it. How

11:46

did that make you feel? When he said that? I

11:49

was like, why are you lying? He? I know he's

11:51

lying. I knew he was lying. I could

11:53

tell. And what do you

11:55

think he was lying about that?

11:58

He didn't know anything about it? I

12:01

think he totally knows or

12:03

did I think he knew? What

12:06

do you think he knew what

12:08

happened to her? He's a

12:10

guy with no conscience. I

12:12

think he does or ever did

12:15

ever bothered him? That's you

12:17

know, what do they what do they call us?

12:20

Sociopath? And then

12:22

Suzanne tells me about a time when she was

12:24

riding in her brother in law's car. I

12:27

don't know where we were going. I know it

12:29

was him and my sister, me and my

12:31

niece were in the bag and

12:34

it was night time. We were going down Bamforth

12:36

Road, and he says

12:39

that there's ghost out here, and I said,

12:41

you know, we were by the way the old cemetery is,

12:44

and I said, I said, I

12:46

heard the story about the cemetery and

12:48

all that. He goes, I'm not talking about the cemetery.

12:51

There's goes out here. Bam

12:54

Fourth Road leads to the same road where Susan

12:57

Loross's remains were found. Albeit

13:00

massive, there is only one section

13:02

of woods on this road. Of

13:05

all the places in town, why

13:07

would this be the area Suzanne's brother

13:09

in law refers to as harboring ghosts

13:13

and something else? Remember

13:15

how an episode four, Stacy

13:17

LaRosa said she remembered

13:20

seeing a guy in a red and black

13:22

flannel shirt who smelled of

13:24

cherry tobacco, helping her father,

13:26

Bob LaRosa, carry her

13:29

mother's body out of their apartment the

13:31

night she allegedly went missing. After

13:34

hearing that detail, Suzanne says

13:37

she immediately thought of her brother in law,

13:39

who always wore flannel back in those

13:41

days. For what it's worth, I've

13:44

heard the witness war flannel

13:46

as well, but look to

13:49

keep things real. This type of anecdotal

13:51

information is interesting and sounds

13:53

promising. But it's supposition,

13:56

just theory. Really, it

13:59

doesn't prove any thing until

14:02

well it does. Susan

14:05

Ange goes on to tell me that after that summer

14:08

Susan Larissa went missing, Bob

14:10

and her brother in law abruptly dissolved

14:13

their friendship. Here

14:16

were two guys inseparable latch

14:18

together at the hip. They've known each other

14:20

since childhood. Then Bob's

14:22

wife disappears, He's got

14:24

this new girlfriend, and Suzanne's

14:27

brother in law packs it up and moves his family

14:29

up to Maine, never contacts

14:32

Bob again. I've

14:34

learned the Vernon police did make a

14:36

trip up to Maine to visit Suzanne's

14:38

brother in law to ask him about Susan Leros's

14:41

disappearance. In

14:43

the documents I have the police approached

14:46

him under the pretense that he knew something

14:48

but was not a suspect. After

14:51

speaking with him, it seems the Vernon Police

14:53

Department ruled him out as a suspect, but

14:56

left the door open to talk to him again, thinking

14:59

he would have been an accessory

15:02

after the fact. I

15:04

think it's weird that you know um

15:07

pretty much the whole time he lived up there, girls

15:09

for disappearing and then he moved and it

15:11

stopped in Rockville. You mean,

15:15

and she used to ride around. You know, hey,

15:17

you want to get high, you want to get high, And

15:20

so he used to drive around Rockville

15:22

asking if girls needed a

15:24

ride, well they wanted

15:26

to go get high or whatever. He

15:29

used to be all eructional. He was hardly have

15:31

at home. Susanne then recalls

15:33

an incident that took place just weeks

15:36

after Susan LaRosa went missing. I

15:39

was at my sister's. We went out

15:41

to the lake to get some more

15:43

on my clothes because I was going to spend some

15:46

of the year. And

15:49

we don't get in the car and they go

15:51

back seat, the bottom part of the back

15:53

seat missing. And

15:56

this is said, what the hell happened to the back seat?

15:58

And he goes, oh, I still oil all over and

16:00

I had to get rid of it. I couldn't get the oil

16:02

out of it, and I had to sit on

16:04

the floorboard in the

16:07

back seat. Suzanne says

16:09

her brother in law's car, the one without

16:11

the back seat, had its blue carpet

16:13

torn out. She remembers because she

16:15

had to sit on the steel underside of the car.

16:18

Near the time she drove past the cemetery.

16:20

When her brother in law mentioned ghosts

16:24

that idea of a blue carpet missing from a vehicle,

16:27

it resonated with me. I

16:29

had heard it somewhere before, so

16:31

I went through my notes from interviews I've done,

16:34

and there it was my last conversation

16:36

with the Wendels and what they'd found after

16:39

digging inside that artesian water well

16:41

on their property. They hired a

16:43

bacco and called the state police, who

16:45

decided to come out. Ken

16:47

Wendell found a video he'd made of the day

16:50

of that excavation. He

16:52

located the file on his laptop and told

16:54

me to sit down and take a look what

16:57

I saw. Well, here

16:59

it is. Let

17:01

me just tell you a piece of does a tarp behind

17:03

him. It's a plastic tarp that they

17:05

found very interesting. But I

17:08

see that, and they thought that was interesting

17:10

that yeah, oh yeah. They held it up and they were they

17:13

all they all came over and had to look at it, and had

17:15

stayed a lot of round stads on it. They weren't

17:17

wordering if it was blood or something

17:19

going there. But so this is what it looked

17:22

like after we removed some clothing. So there's

17:24

still carpet still carpet,

17:26

carpet, there's carpetings.

17:30

I said, we shouldn't be touching corpet. We should

17:32

work in the carpet, so we shouldn't be touching us.

17:34

I looked at the video closely and

17:36

paused it that back home,

17:39

in the same well was lifting up

17:41

a blue piece of carpet, which is unquestionably

17:44

not a section of house carpeting. So

17:47

that carpeting that was found, that blue carpeting

17:50

was it carpeting? Was It looked like

17:52

he came out of the car. Hi,

18:00

Terry, are

18:02

we going to be hiking? I don't think so.

18:05

Um, how are you doing? Good?

18:07

To see it weird right

18:09

now? How come you're feeling weird? I

18:11

don't know. I guess it's normal

18:14

for this. Yeah, it is. It's totally normal.

18:16

Like I didn't know what to do, what to bring. I

18:18

have flowers, I brought a steak. I

18:20

brought a hammer, beau so I can remember where this place

18:23

isn't know what I could do, what it

18:25

was going to be allowed. The

18:27

last time I spoke at length with Terry Shanks,

18:29

she told me she didn't think Bob Larrossa

18:31

acted alone in the murder of her older

18:34

sister Susan LaRosa. During

18:36

that conversation, Terry mentioned

18:38

she had been coming out to this wooded area in

18:40

Vernon, Connecticut every year to place flowers

18:43

on the spot where she thought Susan's

18:45

remains were found more than forty

18:47

years ago. Terry would pull over,

18:49

take a moment, play sunflowers

18:51

inside a chain link fence, sunflowers.

18:54

Because Susan was such a free spirited,

18:57

hippie kind of girl. That detail

18:59

stuck with me. The inherent

19:01

pain and anxiety that never leaves the

19:04

family of the missing. It's

19:06

not even so much about who is responsible.

19:09

It becomes instead in all consuming, obsessive

19:12

pursuit to bring the dead back

19:14

home. I knew the area

19:16

Terry had been coming to all these years

19:18

wasn't the right location, and Susan's

19:21

family deserves to know exactly

19:23

where. So I called Lieutenant

19:26

Bill Meyer from the Vernon Police and

19:28

he said today for Terry and I to meet

19:30

him and another detective out at

19:32

the actual site. Bill

19:36

Meyer is a great guy. He's um

19:39

You'll recognize him. He's the face of the Vernon

19:41

p D. Who you've seen. Um. Well,

19:43

I try not to look at Sorry.

19:45

I have a really bad vibe with

19:47

them and hand of Ham

19:50

Dave Hathaway. He's retiring soon. What

19:53

Terry is referring to is the family's frustration

19:56

of not being heard, feeling

19:58

left out, not being kept up

20:00

to date, and not pursuing leads.

20:04

Bill, are

20:06

we in the vicinity here and look

20:08

bit further down the road? Yeah, we did some work

20:10

on it. Hi, I am Bill Meyer. By the way, I am thanks,

20:14

yes, thanks for coming out. Glad

20:17

of course. Um.

20:21

We parked on the side of the street just off

20:23

ban Forth Road where Suzanne

20:26

St. Louis and her brother in law were riding

20:28

that day he mentioned ghosts. There

20:31

are no houses around. I

20:33

six, now called eighty

20:36

four, is just west. About

20:38

a half mile from

20:40

here, a country road shaping

20:42

like the letter s heading north,

20:45

cuts through two small bodies of water.

20:48

Just before one of those bodies of

20:50

water is a gate into an old logging

20:52

road, which was accessible when

20:55

the girls went missing. That

20:57

dirt logging road goes deep into the

20:59

forest, opens after

21:01

about a half mile into

21:03

a fifty acre field, which

21:06

is where we're heading. Nothing

21:09

is going to deter Terry from this moment.

21:12

It's a humid summer day,

21:14

hot esteem the sun is

21:16

bright and beating on us, But

21:19

who really gives a shit about conditions?

21:22

A sister wants to see where her siblings

21:24

body was dumped by those who killed

21:26

her. As we chat, Bill

21:28

mentioned something of interest to me. That's

21:31

why they used to They used to dump leaves there right in the

21:33

town, dump over here.

21:36

I don't know what conditioned that to. I don't think he's got

21:38

pulled out of It's just a big, multiply animal.

21:41

I don't know. Town

21:44

employee access is what I'm thinking.

21:47

I have lived in this area for forty years.

21:50

I never knew the location even existed.

21:52

A majority of the people in town, I would

21:54

bet did not know either. This

21:56

tells me Susan's killer had to know how

21:59

to access the location. He

22:01

or they had to be familiar with

22:03

this area of town. Oh

22:07

oh boy,

22:11

do the best we can. We

22:15

got a road, well, you know

22:17

what I figured where my sister goes

22:19

through. You

22:23

know, it's been a couple of generations of police officers

22:25

have worked on this investigation. We

22:27

have the list, you know, going back to you know, the original

22:30

case officers, and then well,

22:32

unfortunately I can

22:35

only speak from my point of view.

22:37

There really wasn't in any investigation

22:39

that included us as a family. So

22:42

I can't get your nay anything.

22:47

I can say with absolute confidence.

22:50

The Vernon p D investigators working

22:52

on Susan Larosa's case over the years

22:54

put in thousands of hours. Bob

22:57

Larossa remained the only in slightly

23:00

suspect. In fact,

23:02

when the case was reopened in two thousand

23:04

two, lab technicians along

23:07

with renowned forensic scientist

23:09

Dr Henry Lee, members of the Vernon

23:11

Police Department's Detective Division, and

23:14

Susan's sister Bernadette, went into

23:16

the old LaRosa apartment. Inside.

23:20

Dr Henry Lee cut out pieces of floor

23:22

to examine later at the lab. They

23:25

spent months testing everything collected

23:27

and found no human blood. Still,

23:30

the Vernon Police Department convinced the local

23:32

prosecutor to take the case to a

23:35

grand jury, hoping to indict

23:37

Bob LaRosa, an effort

23:40

that failed. Last

23:44

time I called there, and this was like probably

23:48

a little over two years ago, they

23:51

gave me some twenty year old too. You didn't

23:53

even hadn't even opened up the case file

23:55

yet. Horror. Yeah, And

23:58

he was supposed to call me and never did so. I

24:00

called that a couple of times and I said, no, I'm done

24:03

these cases. That's pretty common. You

24:05

know they're hot and gold. You

24:08

know there'll be some momentum behind them. Got Task

24:10

Force a few years ago and there was

24:12

a lot of momentum then with the task Force. As

24:15

the Lieutenant, Bill Meyer takes the brunt

24:18

of the victims family's frustration.

24:20

It's a lack of communication, not between

24:22

police and families, but police

24:24

and police. Families just

24:27

want to know they're being heard. They

24:29

want updates. Cold

24:31

cases are passed down to generations

24:33

of investigators. Each

24:35

has his or her own way of doing

24:38

things. We

24:41

make our way to a clearing. The

24:43

site turned out to be a few miles east

24:45

from where Terry had been placing flowers

24:48

all those years. It's

24:53

been four decades. For

24:55

the first time, Terry Shanks is

24:58

going to stand on the exact location and

25:00

where her sister's decomposed remains,

25:03

actually a skull, several bones,

25:05

and what was left of her clothing were

25:07

found by laggers. You

25:10

see where that tree is, that's the

25:13

spot. Yep, that's

25:16

that that shrub right there. Yeah, that big, that big

25:18

shrub right there. If you look, you the

25:20

red dot, see the red dot, it's

25:23

pointing right to it. Terry

25:25

stairs. I gotta wonder what

25:27

she's thinking. Bill decides

25:30

to stay back and wait. As Terry and I walk

25:32

over, her demeanor changes

25:34

as we get closer to the scene. She

25:37

goes quiet. So,

25:40

how you feeling being right here in the spot? Okay,

25:43

you're okay? Good? Her

25:46

heart's I'm

25:49

glad we were able to put this together for you

25:51

and do this. We stay

25:53

in at the exact location where twenty year

25:56

old Susan LaRosa, Terry Shanks's

25:58

sister, was found. Her

26:00

remains scattered over a small section

26:02

of the woods. From

26:05

what I've been told, cadaver dogs

26:08

never searched this area for any additional

26:10

remains. However, law

26:13

enforcement did shallowly excavate

26:16

a portion of the area around her body,

26:19

but found no additional evidence. Jesus

26:22

Marian, Juice, Aina Hope us out of grave

26:24

for many Ah, you

26:26

know what I think it is

26:33

here is what I meant by that, a killer's

26:36

dumping ground, if it's working, rarely

26:38

changes in this area. If

26:40

the same purpose responsible for all or

26:42

a few of the girls worked for ten

26:45

years. It wasn't until Susan's

26:47

remains were found that activity kind of stopped.

26:51

There is nothing around us trees,

26:54

tall grass, wild flowers,

26:56

dense shrubbery, and an open field

26:59

about the size of the city park. If

27:02

you wanted to dump bodies, nobody

27:05

would see you. The freeway

27:07

to our west in the background provides

27:09

noise coverage. The logging road

27:11

allows you to take a vehicle in and out

27:13

of here without anybody seeing

27:15

a damn thing. So

27:19

you put in the flowers there? How anxious?

27:21

Sir? Yeah,

27:24

Terry bent down. She

27:26

closed her eyes. Then

27:28

she placed the sunflowers near what looked

27:31

to be a fox. Then sad,

27:35

sad makes it more real. Sure,

27:39

I know it's real, but I mean, yeah,

27:42

sminthing it more real. It

27:47

never goes away, you know, it doesn't.

27:51

Terry begins to think about April, Lisa

27:53

White sister and Mary Janice

27:55

Pocket sister, the three of whom

27:57

have formed kind of a grief squad.

28:00

They help and support each other through

28:02

it all. I mean, we have

28:05

her, so you know, we we are

28:07

the lucky ones. Like I said, we

28:09

You know, people always said, oh, you're the lucky ones. You

28:11

found your person. We

28:14

did, and you know, in our

28:16

heart of hearts we also know who

28:18

did it, so you know,

28:21

and the other the other four they're

28:23

nowhere to be found, so I know, and that's what

28:25

I pray for every day for them. And you

28:27

know, even if they had this heap of a

28:30

pile of wheats, it would be something

28:33

for them to memorialize. It's

28:36

okay, thank

28:38

you, but you know where, you know where it is. Now. You

28:41

can come anytime. No one's gonna know, no

28:43

one's gonna bother you. I'll

28:46

leave you for a minute by yourself, okay.

28:49

As we connect with Bill and begin walking

28:51

back to our vehicles, the lieutenant

28:54

shares something. I don't

28:56

think the serious changed the whole lotto from

28:59

known. Yeah, I don't think it's much different.

29:02

Bill then talks about missing people in general

29:04

and how police go about it today.

29:07

I had asked, because, for one, when

29:09

Susan went missing, police never

29:11

went into her Ward Street apartment to

29:13

do a search or question Bob LaRosa

29:16

at length. That all came later.

29:19

If someone goes missing today, I mean, you

29:22

have number one electronic edge so cell

29:24

phones, things like that that can be GPS

29:27

tracked. I mean, facial recognition, even though

29:29

it's in its infancy. Now

29:31

everything's electronic. The second new skiing your

29:33

credit card, financial DABT. You know, data things

29:35

like that. It's instantly traceable. Right,

29:38

it's hard to scarry cash, it's hard to hide,

29:40

hard to hide. It's hard. So we find people pretty

29:42

quickly today. You know, I'm doing usual for somebody

29:44

missing more than a few days. By

29:48

the time we make it back to where our cards are parked,

29:50

our conversation turns to small talk

29:52

about the area. Just around

29:54

the corner, a three minute drive west

29:57

was the location of the Iglu Restaurant,

30:00

a popular hangout spot for a lot of kids

30:02

in the sixties and seventies, including

30:04

Lisa White, Irene and Susan

30:07

Larrosa. Terry tells Bill

30:09

and I how she recalls going to the Igloo

30:11

a lot with the Witness,

30:14

who was her brother in law at the time.

30:20

When you have a volatile source, in this case,

30:23

the Witness, you want to know everything

30:25

you can about him before you make an approach.

30:27

For example, I spoke to someone

30:29

off the record who told me the Witness whenever

30:32

he drove into Connecticut from his new place of

30:34

residence in another state, he put

30:37

his kids in the trunk of the

30:39

car before crossing the state line.

30:42

Why. I have no idea, but

30:44

this says a hell of a lot about that guy.

30:47

I'm getting closer to reaching out to the witness,

30:50

but first I want to learn a bit

30:52

more from his ex wife, who

30:54

just so happens to be Susan Lerosa's

30:57

sister. Anne. Prentice

31:00

say, you have a lot older than me. I

31:02

was sixteen and he

31:04

was I think twenty two. I

31:07

confirmed through and that the witness worked

31:09

for the Talent School System

31:11

and Bob and the witness did a lot of driving

31:14

around together during the day in

31:16

Bob's station wagon and an

31:18

old fifties era ambulance,

31:22

and describes her x as allegedly

31:24

being violent to the extreme. She

31:27

was terrified of him.

31:29

I'm also interested in his habits

31:31

beyond the dysfunction inside the home. Would

31:35

he leave at times and you not know

31:37

where he is? And that's why he would leave for

31:39

days at the time, for days at

31:41

a time, well,

31:44

like she'dly, let's say he went to work this

31:46

morning, I may not see him till tomorrow

31:49

night, right, And

31:52

any idea where he went now?

31:57

And I learned not to ask, if

32:00

you recall from a previous episode. And Prentice

32:03

was childhood best friends with Irene

32:05

LaRosa, and they bonded because

32:07

they were allegedly raped as teenagers,

32:10

the implication being that Nathan LaRosa

32:13

was responsible, though Anne, still

32:16

quite devastated by the trauma,

32:19

did not want to go into detail about it.

32:22

Around the time her sister Susan went missing

32:24

and in the witness lived a few houses

32:26

away from Susan and Bob Lerosa's

32:29

apartment in Rockville. So

32:32

I asked Ann if she recalls anything about

32:34

the night her sister Susan went missing, and

32:37

what the witness did. He

32:40

didn't come home that night, what

32:43

point he did? I don't know, I

32:46

asked Anne. After she married the witness,

32:48

did Irene's name ever come

32:50

up? No. The

32:53

only bad thing he ever said

32:55

to me was he got

32:58

really mad at on time and

33:00

he said, if you don't watch it, you're gonna end up

33:02

like your sister. In

33:10

the next episode of paper Ghosts,

33:14

a lot of looked the same, So we started

33:16

looking at it, is this more than one person? Is

33:18

this sort of like you know something that was doing this in the area,

33:21

you know duc Control, Then at aid Um,

33:23

you know in Jena's pocket. Respect. They

33:26

could say two different things that

33:29

he he's involved, and

33:33

one of the missings for be that he's

33:35

a victim himself. Let

33:38

me ask you a question that has come up for me in this Do

33:40

you remember ever hearing

33:42

the name Irene Lo Rosa as

33:45

someone who was missing. No,

33:47

that doesn't doesn't sound familiar to me. Another

33:51

thing people constantly say to me is

33:53

don't worry, she'll come back. Maybe

33:55

they think that it will make you feel better, but

33:58

it doesn't. Paper

34:02

Ghosts is written and executive

34:04

produced by me and William Phelps,

34:07

with help from producer Christina Everett

34:09

and sound editing by Pete Cardy from

34:11

Backroom Audio. A special

34:13

thanks to Abu Safar and Will

34:15

Pearson from I Heart Radio. The

34:18

series theme number four four two

34:20

is written and performed by Tom Mooney

34:23

and Thomas Phelps. For

34:25

more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

34:28

visit the I heart Radio app, Apple

34:30

Podcasts, or wherever you listen

34:33

to your favorite shows.