NY NY - Sylvia Lwowski, 22, Staten Island, 6 Sept 1975 - #2

[Odyssey]

That is where I'm at. It isn't like you could search BF/F's car now, for example. Oh, why didn't those detectives in 1975 find something useful for the cold case squad??

If the perpetrator wasn't one of the local serial killers, then it's better than even odds (in my opinion) that there were two people who know or knew what happened to Sylvia, or she would likely have been found by now. This thought includes either disappearing by own free will or not.

MMQC made a good point earlier - she was contacted by Detective Savage from the Cold Case Squad in 2010, and there is a reference to a Detective Savage in 1978 articles about Ethel Atwell's disappearance.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the cold case detective *is* the original investigator.

 

[Jmoose]

MMQC made a good point earlier - she was contacted by Detective Savage from the Cold Case Squad in 2010, and there is a reference to a Detective Savage in 1978 articles about Ethel Atwell's disappearance.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the cold case detective *is* the original investigator.

Brilliant! We have no idea who investigated this in 1975, but maybe...

 

[GoingByMyGut]

MMQC made a good point earlier - she was contacted by Detective Savage from the Cold Case Squad in 2010, and there is a reference to a Detective Savage in 1978 articles about Ethel Atwell's disappearance.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the cold case detective *is* the original investigator.

Brilliant! We have no idea who investigated this in 1975, but maybe...

Hi, all -- been a crazy few weeks in my world. Won't go too far OT, but my daughter was in Honduras for a few weeks and had to have emergency surgery. All's well that ends well, but it has taken a while to get here.

A Q about the above quotes. I don't know much about internal police dept. organization, but since "Det. Lennon" was making a decision on whether to pursue this case in 1975, can't we know he was the one responsible? Also, I see a few numbers on the report I don't understand, like the circle around the handwritten "#49" and the "CCD No." Might either of those refer to the officer taking the report?

 

[Odyssey]

Hi, all -- been a crazy few weeks in my world. Won't go too far OT, but my daughter was in Honduras for a few weeks and had to have emergency surgery. All's well that ends well, but it has taken a while to get here.

A Q about the above quotes. I don't know much about internal police dept. organization, but since "Det. Lennon" was making a decision on whether to pursue this case in 1975, can't we know he was the one responsible? Also, I see a few numbers on the report I don't understand, like the circle around the handwritten "#49" and the "CCD No." Might either of those refer to the officer taking the report?

No, I don't think we can be sure that Det. Lennon was responsible... I think someone had speculated that possibly Det. Lennon was a homicide detective, and that when it said "Det Lennon will not handle", it may have meant that it was going to stay in "Missing Persons".

I hope your daughter is doing well!!

 

[Jmoose]

Hi, all -- been a crazy few weeks in my world. Won't go too far OT, but my daughter was in Honduras for a few weeks and had to have emergency surgery. All's well that ends well, but it has taken a while to get here.

A Q about the above quotes. I don't know much about internal police dept. organization, but since "Det. Lennon" was making a decision on whether to pursue this case in 1975, can't we know he was the one responsible? Also, I see a few numbers on the report I don't understand, like the circle around the handwritten "#49" and the "CCD No." Might either of those refer to the officer taking the report?

I don't know that it necessarily means Lennon was the one who investigated the case-I am not sure if someone else subsequently investigated or not. In any event, Richmond County detectives would have been responsible for investigating in 1975, but the cold case squad would have been comprised of detectives from all precincts in the five boroughs-in other words, Det. Savage isn't part of the cold case squad, as far as I know. He was the one that the family was told to contact on Staten Island, though.

 

[GoingByMyGut]

No, I don't think we can be sure that Det. Lennon was responsible... I think someone had speculated that possibly Det. Lennon was a homicide detective, and that when it said "Det Lennon will not handle", it may have meant that it was going to stay in "Missing Persons".

I hope your daughter is doing well!!

BBM1: I see -- that makes sense. So it would be the "Missing Persons" crew who might (cursorily) have investigated in 1975. I had read "Det Lennon will not handle" as "police will not handle," but now I see the distinction.

BBM2: Thanks for that, Odyssey. She is.

 

[GoingByMyGut]

I don't know that it necessarily means Lennon was the one who investigated the case-I am not sure if someone else subsequently investigated or not. In any event, Richmond County detectives would have been responsible for investigating in 1975, but the cold case squad would have been comprised of detectives from all precincts in the five boroughs-in other words, Det. Savage isn't part of the cold case squad, as far as I know. He was the one that the family was told to contact on Staten Island, though.

So, I guess this still confuses me -- or I've lost some sync with these facts in the last few weeks. Didn't MMQC say Savage was the "cold case" detective that contacted her in 2010? Or are you saying Savage wasn't the cold case detective at the time? (Wait -- one of the numbers on the police report is "CCD No." -- would that be "cold case detective?" Does that make any sense? Would they designate a CCD so early in the game?) Apologies if I am a little out of it.

 

[Jmoose]

No, I don't think we can be sure that Det. Lennon was responsible... I think someone had speculated that possibly Det. Lennon was a homicide detective, and that when it said "Det Lennon will not handle", it may have meant that it was going to stay in "Missing Persons".

I hope your daughter is doing well!!

This makes the most sense in trying to sort of decode the little bit of information available.

 

[GoingByMyGut]

Here's a disturbing quote about the NYPD Cold Case Squad from a 2007 article in New York magazine:

"In 2003, the unit was awarded a $500,000 Justice Department grant to go back into old case files and cull DNA, but the undermanned department has not used all the funds. Troves of evidence still sits untouched in the NYPD property clerk’s office, and with it, the potential to find answers."

That's about 8 years ago ... wonder how things stand today? Also, it makes me wonder about those "troves of evidence." I wonder if it includes anything relevant to SL?

 

[Jmoose]

Hi, all -- been a crazy few weeks in my world. Won't go too far OT, but my daughter was in Honduras for a few weeks and had to have emergency surgery. All's well that ends well, but it has taken a while to get here.

A Q about the above quotes. I don't know much about internal police dept. organization, but since "Det. Lennon" was making a decision on whether to pursue this case in 1975, can't we know he was the one responsible? Also, I see a few numbers on the report I don't understand, like the circle around the handwritten "#49" and the "CCD No." Might either of those refer to the officer taking the report?

I am glad that your daughter is doing well, and was wondering where you've been!

It seems to me that, while there isn't really any new information to add, every week or so somebody here has a new thought about the information we do have, which makes me glad that people keep coming back after taking a break.

 

[GoingByMyGut]

Here's something that might impact what we know about this case. In another WS thread (Jane Doe/Staten Island), a poster brings up Patrick Savage. He/she appears to have even spoken to PS and provides a lengthy quote, but then says that, as of 7/2009 at least, PS no longer works for NYPD. MMQC, that's pretty close to 2010 -- could you have gotten the date of that call wrong? More disappointing to me is that I've been thinking all this time that PS might still be working on SL's case. Change of hands doesn't bode well for an old file, does it ...

 

[Jmoose]

Here's a disturbing quote about the NYPD Cold Case Squad from a 2007 article in New York magazine:

"In 2003, the unit was awarded a $500,000 Justice Department grant to go back into old case files and cull DNA, but the undermanned department has not used all the funds. Troves of evidence still sits untouched in the NYPD property clerk’s office, and with it, the potential to find answers."

That's about 8 years ago ... wonder how things stand today? Also, it makes me wonder about those "troves of evidence." I wonder if it includes anything relevant to SL?

I wonder how they manage to keep and retrieve all of the evidence that they collect? There are massive amounts of unsolved cases, with varying amounts of evidence that the police have to hold onto. It seems possible to me that some of it may get lost, or even eventually tossed, right? They have to catalogue it, but not everyone is meticulous in restoring something to its correct place

In Sylvia's case, I am inclined to think that there probably isn't much, or even any, evidence collected and stored, because the detectives in 1975 didn't appear to think she was a victim of foul play. The only relevant thing might be the glasses. I wonder if evidence containing DNA was collected back then as a matter of course, even though DNA testing didn't exist yet. I know they could type blood then, but that's about it. If something happened in somebody's else's car, they could have collected blood, but since they could only type it, maybe a sample might not be collected when or if the car was searched? I am just stuck on thinking that there never was any evidence collected in Sylvia's case, so that would put this on the fast track to cold case. It wasn't likely purposeful (like trying to cover for the last person to see her), but rather, a professional opinion that, we now strongly suspect, wasn't true-Sylvia did not just walk away.

 

[Dushi]

I am not sure there was ever an investigation of any substance, so I don't think there was any evidence collected.

My thoughts are that LE did what they had to and nothing more.
They seemed to believe (from all I have read about the lack of investigation) that Sylvia left because she wanted to.

They may have believed that because of interviews with her family and BF/F

If you recall, BF/F came to MMQC's house that night, spoke to her about SL getting out of the car. MMQC also spent that day with Sylvia. They were best friends. LE never bothered to speak to MMQC at all til 2010

 

[Jmoose]

So, I guess this still confuses me -- or I've lost some sync with these facts in the last few weeks. Didn't MMQC say Savage was the "cold case" detective that contacted her in 2010? Or are you saying Savage wasn't the cold case detective at the time? (Wait -- one of the numbers on the police report is "CCD No." -- would that be "cold case detective?" Does that make any sense? Would they designate a CCD so early in the game?) Apologies if I am a little out of it.

The contacts in this case according to the NY State Missing site would have been Det. Wendell Stradford (cold case squad), Det. Patrick Savage (Richmond County DA's office), or Capt. Kelly (122 precinct). And MMQC and AWSDeerHunter both said they talked to Det. Savage around 2010. It occurred to me that if he was working in 1975, he would almost have to be retired by now-he would have put in much more than 20 years, and would be at least in his 60's ( not that that is old!). It isn't necessarily bad that somebody new would now have Sylvia's file-sometimes that is really helpful. The problem is if the police don't think there is anyone left to care, and it's then a waste of time to work on a case with no evidence to work with.

 

[Dushi]

Did LE even check to see if the story they were given rang true?
Did they check out the details?
What about the movie, did they go or not?

There is a huge amount of time unaccounted for if they didn't attend the movie
Did anyone bother to check?

 

[alliemay]

It would be nice to know what vehicle he was driving at the time and if it was sold afterward.

 

[Jmoose]

Did LE even check to see if the story they were given rang true?
Did they check out the details?
What about the movie, did they go or not?

There is a huge amount of time unaccounted for if they didn't attend the movie
Did anyone bother to check?

I know-these are the questions that we all have! It burns me up that all of the events together combine to create a situation where Sylvia's disappearance just falls through the cracks, and now it seems to be impossible to ever know what happened to her. It would have helped some if the BF/F had shown some interest in what happened to this woman that he rightfully must have loved-he was planning to marry her, after all. If this had been the case, he could have been taken out of the mix, and all scrutiny could have been directed elsewhere.

 

[Dushi]

I know-these are the questions that we all have! It burns me up that all of the events together combine to create a situation where Sylvia's disappearance just falls through the cracks, and now it seems to be impossible to ever know what happened to her. It would have helped some if the BF/F had shown some interest in what happened to this woman that he rightfully must have loved-he was planning to marry her, after all. If this had been the case, he could have been taken out of the mix, and all scrutiny could have been directed elsewhere.

And why didn't he show interest?
For the woman he was going to marry.

How do you just walk away from a situation like this?
I know everyone reacts differently to stresses in life, but , really???

I can't find an explanation that works for me

JMO

 

[Jmoose]

It would be nice to know what vehicle he was driving at the time and if it was sold afterward.

I wonder if that information was ever collected by the police? They could find out if the car was sold or transferred to someone else by the VIN number, couldn't they?

 

[GoingByMyGut]

I wonder how they manage to keep and retrieve all of the evidence that they collect? There are massive amounts of unsolved cases, with varying amounts of evidence that the police have to hold onto. It seems possible to me that some of it may get lost, or even eventually tossed, right? They have to catalogue it, but not everyone is meticulous in restoring something to its correct place

In Sylvia's case, I am inclined to think that there probably isn't much, or even any, evidence collected and stored, because the detectives in 1975 didn't appear to think she was a victim of foul play. The only relevant thing might be the glasses. I wonder if evidence containing DNA was collected back then as a matter of course, even though DNA testing didn't exist yet. I know they could type blood then, but that's about it. If something happened in somebody's else's car, they could have collected blood, but since they could only type it, maybe a sample might not be collected when or if the car was searched? I am just stuck on thinking that there never was any evidence collected in Sylvia's case, so that would put this on the fast track to cold case. It wasn't likely purposeful (like trying to cover for the last person to see her), but rather, a professional opinion that, we now strongly suspect, wasn't true-Sylvia did not just walk away.

BBM1: This is somebody's job, right? Like an archivist, or librarian -- the "manager" of the evidence room? I am guessing -- purely guessing -- that since the CC squad has its own quarters, that evidence had to be located in its original facility, moved, and re-archived in the CC offices. And while I'm not sure they would "toss" anything related to an open case, I totally agree that there are a bazillion opportunities along the way to misfile, lose, and wrongly refile evidence.

BBM2: But I am also thinking that once CC gets the case, they could ADD to the evidence that's been stored, so in SL's case, it wouldn't necessarily have to have been collected in 1975. Hypothetically, anyway. From where we sit, it's difficult to imagine what that might be.

BBM3: I'm thinking only if it was accidental. You know? Like something was collected that happened to contain DNA -- clothing (as a source of bodily fluids, dead skin), personal belongings (hairbrush, lipstick), blood collected for typing (or on things). I don't think the prospect of DNA being deducible was on their radar at that time. Do you?