NY NY - Paul Michael Mercurio, 20, Bardonia, 24 November 1978

[HopeRains]

This probably sounds a little out there, but I always say something like that "reading about me in the paper" when I play the lottery. Not often, and I've never made the paper!

 

[DD Byrd]

This probably sounds a little out there, but I always say something like that "reading about me in the paper" when I play the lottery. Not often, and I've never made the paper!

That's true, it could have been something light-hearted. Or completely irrelevant to his disappearance.

But it still sounds to me like whatever he was in the paper for would either be witnessed or otherwise register with people. Driving his car into a lake in the middle of the night somewhere in the boonies might not ever make the paper, so it seems he thought whatever he did would be notable and immediately connected to him. Not a lot to go on and it would be interesting to have his friends weigh in...was he a prankster? Could he have planned something quasi-dangerous and it went wrong, he was killed and his car is with him just out of sight?