PA PA - Mary Ann Verdecchia, 10, Bloomfield, 7 June 1962

[MaryLiz]

Here's the updated Doe Network link on Mary Ann to read about the case. The other Doe links on here didn't work anymore. It has an additional photo of her also.

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1627dfpa.html

 

[MaryLiz]

Fascinating case. How old was the woman that disappeared in the Martinique? Does that building still stand?

I just searched through a bunch of newspaper articles on newspaperarchives.com to see if I could find out. It seems to me I read at one time that the other lady who disappeared was in her 20s or 30s, but I can't find any articles now that state that. I just did a Google search on the Martinique Apartments on Baum Blvd. in Bloomfield, PA and all I get are articles about Mary Ann. The building may still be there but they may not be apartments anymore.

 

[scriptgirl]

You would think cops would be all over that building if two people disappeared in it

 

[MaryLiz]

You would think cops would be all over that building if two people disappeared in it

I agree...that's also interesting about the guy I just found the article on who lived only 3 doors down from Mary Ann who was caught trying to get 3 other little girls into his car. I wonder what ever happened with that. I just did a search of his name on newspaperarchives.com and found nothing about him being questioned or what happened after that.

 

[forthelost]

http://www.forthelost.org/calikids/MVerdecchia.doc

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Bumping....It's been 3 years since this sad case was bumped up.

I found an article from the Post-Gazette from July 28, 1962, where a man was questioned in Mary Ann's disappearance. I'll try to post the link but I don't know if it will come through or not. It says that the suspect was witnessed by a cab driver trying to lure 3 little girls into his car. The cab driver summoned the police and the suspect was arrested. But he only lived 3 doors down from Mary Ann. I don't remember reading that before.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...tsNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3787,3639498

I hadn't read that before, either. He would certainly seem to be a viable suspect. 1962 is like the stone age of missing persons; it is so hard to get information.

The reorganization of the missing persons cases on the board will help us keep case discussions going. Whoever thought of it--good job.

 

[MaryLiz]

Bumping for Mary Ann. This coming Monday, June 7th, it will be 48 years since she has been missing.

 

[Kat]

I hadn't read that before, either. He would certainly seem to be a viable suspect. 1962 is like the stone age of missing persons; it is so hard to get information.

The reorganization of the missing persons cases on the board will help us keep case discussions going. Whoever thought of it--good job.

In the 1962 article J.B. is the name of the man who was questioned in a morals case.

In that article he is listed as aged 57 yrs. Which gives us a 'round about year of birth as 1905. There is a J.B. listed in the Social Security death index with a dob of april 1905, state PA with death in DEC 1971.

Where is Bloomfield in relation to the location of both young ladies being discussed in this thread please? TIA.

Where is Beaver County in relation please? I saw a J.B. reported in other artcle's but it's probably another?

 

[pittsburghgirl]

I am not sure who you mean by "both young ladies.".

In accounts of this case I've seen Bloomfield described as a suburb of Pittsburgh. It is not a suburb; it's a city neighborhood in the eastern part of the city. Mary Ann lived on Morewood Avenue, technically Bloomfield, I think, but on the border of the neighborhood known as Oakland, which houses the University of Pittsburgh and CMU. The Martinique Apartments are on Baum Blvd., which runs into the Oakland neighborhood at the edge of Bloomfield. Marcella Krulce, age 30, disappeared from that building without a trace. Her "hometown" was Canonsburg (also the hometown of Bobby Vinton and Perry Como) but she moved into the city because she worked downtown. From Bloomfield, it is a short bus ride into the "Golden Triangle," or downtown. In the early 1969s, it would have been a stretch to call Canonsburg a suburb, which is south of Pittsburgh. Even today, that would be at least a 45-minute ride on the interstate to downtown.

When I have time to get on my real computer, I will try to post a map that shows the Morewood Ave./Baum Blvd. area. The City of Pittsburgh is in Allegheny County. Beaver County is due west of Allegheny County.

Bloomfield itself is a traditionally Italian neighborhood, even today, anchored by a major hospital
and with a nice main street (Liberty Avenue) that includes Immaculate Conception Church and the school that Mary Ann attended.

ETA: Mary Ann's birthday is August 15. She would be 59.

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Here is a link to a Google map with Baum Blvd. and Morewood at the point of the pin. Notice that Morewood, where Mary Ann lived, is a short residential street. Baum is a main road, with commercial development.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Baum+Boulevard+and+Morewood+Avenue,+Pittsburgh,+PA&sll=40.457691,-79.93854&sspn=0.022204,0.036693&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Baum+Blvd+%26+Morewood+Ave,+Pittsburgh,+Allegheny,+Pennsylvania+15213&z=16

Same map, wider perspective, including neighborhood names. In Pittsburgh, "official" neighborhood boundaries do not always coincide with the boundaries recognized by people who live there.

As to city boundaries, in the east the city ends near the Allegheny River at Highland Park, sort of bulges out to include what the map calls "Homewood South," and runs along Rt. 8 to Swisshelm Park and the Monongehela River. South of the River, the city ends between Hays and W. Homestead in the east and borders Brentwood, Dormont, Greentree, Crafton and McKees Rocks to the west. Bellevue, Reserve and Millvale are towns on the north border, which pretty much follows the Allegheny River after that. Beaver County sits between Pittsburgh's northern suburbs and the Ohio border, that is, north and west of the Point or Golden Triangle.

http://http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Baum+Boulevard+and+Morewood+Avenue,+Pittsburgh,+PA&sll=40.457691,-79.93854&sspn=0.022204,0.036693&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Baum+Blvd+%26+Morewood+Ave,+Pittsburgh,+Allegheny,+Pennsylvania+15213&ll=40.456222,-79.948025&spn=0.17764,0.293541&z=12

 

[anitarey]

I remember the disappearance of Mary Ann. I played with her when I was 6 she would have been a year or two older. I lived one street over on Maripoe St in Oakland. I remember the police questioning alot of people on this case. Does anyone know what the JB stood for on the man that was questioned as a person of interest?

 

[Snackcakes66]

Welcome anitarey

JB is the initials of the man in this article: http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...tsNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3787,3639498

 

[websurfer]

I am from PITTSBURGH & I was 11 when Mary Ann Verdecchia went missing...
so I was in the 5th grade & all the children were very afraid back then that they might get taken too...
And after all these years it is still a mystery.

 

[MaryLiz]

Bump...

Mary Ann has been missing for 49 years now.

http://betweenlifeanddeath.blogspot.com/2007/06/mary-ann-verdecchia-now-missing-45.html

 

[pittsburghgirl]

thank, MryLiz, for marking the anniversary of Mary Ann's disappearance. 49 years, and we still don't know. But I am so glad people remember her.

 

[Richard]

This June will mark the 50 year anniversary of Mary Ann's disappearance.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Search for missing Pa. girl goes on 50 years later

Fifty years ago, Therese Rocco got a late-night phone call that marked her career and still obsesses her: A 10-year-old girl had been missing since noon.

Then the head of the Pittsburgh police missing-person squad, Rocco set out to the Bloomfield home where little Mary Ann Verdecchia was last seen.

"And there we began our investigation," she said. "And it went on and on and on."

As the decades since June 7, 1962, wore on, theories about the fate of the doe-eyed Catholic schoolgirl multiplied but never panned out.

More: http://www.wytv.com/content/news/pa...on-50-years-later/R9PdFU83ekqo3IBDiqpngg.cspx

 

[Stella]

I wonder if the police were there when the Martinique Apartments were demolished? Mary Ann could've been buried somewhere in one of the apartments and a demolition crew would easily miss a small skeleton under tons of rubble unless they knew to look for it. I just feel like she never left the Martinique, once she returned from those errands.

 

[scriptgirl]

I don't think she left those apartments either and she was not the first person who disappeared in there.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Case of missing Pittsburgh girl remains unsolved 50 years later

It’s been 50 years, but Therese Rocco is still haunted by the missing person case of Mary Ann Verdecchia.

[snip]

Verdecchia had attended half-day classes at Immaculate Conception School. She went home to change and then ran an errand for a woman living in the old Martinique Apartments on Baum Boulevard.

Witnesses said they saw her entering the building around 3 p.m. but not leaving.

“Martinique had a lot of unusual things in that building that we questioned,” Rocco said. “There was a woman that disappeared six months before.”

More: http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/case-missing-pittsburgh-girl-remains-unsolved-50-y/nRB8f/