NY NY - Sylvia Lwowski, 22, Staten Island, 6 Sept 1975 - #4

[rosemadderlake]

Hard to believe after all the publicity, radio show, newspaper article, and our efforts here on WS that one could be sure she is dead? -Hard to believe with NamUs at the ready to do an age progression that her family wouldn’t see the potential to ID Sylvia with a better idea of what she may look like today –especially if not sure she is dead. I think she would have aged well. There are some expert eyes here on WS who know the unidentified databases very well…

Why go through the last couple of years in the first place? I agree, in the silence we can only speculate but what I have learned over the last couple of years here on WS is that miracles do happen and very, cold cases have been solved, and the unidentified have been identified after decades of being a doe.

This smart, beautiful and obviously loved woman didn’t just vanish. I remain optimistic and hope the current silence does not mean people who love her are giving up. Please tell me that isn’t so.

 

[Jmoose]

Hard to believe after all the publicity, radio show, newspaper article, and our efforts here on WS that one could be sure she is dead? -Hard to believe with NamUs at the ready to do an age progression that her family wouldn’t see the potential to ID Sylvia with a better idea of what she may look like today –especially if not sure she is dead. I think she would have aged well. There are some expert eyes here on WS who know the unidentified databases very well…

Why go through the last couple of years in the first place? I agree, in the silence we can only speculate but what I have learned over the last couple of years here on WS is that miracles do happen and very, cold cases have been solved, and the unidentified have been identified after decades of being a doe.

This smart, beautiful and obviously loved woman didn’t just vanish. I remain optimistic and hope the current silence does not mean people who love her are giving up. Please tell me that isn’t so.

I know-everything you've said is true; but for all we know, he's found the appropriate photos and already given them up to have the age-progression made. Or maybe he couldn't find what was needed-the ones of his mother and possibly some maternal Aunts. I'm sure this is very difficult for him, thinking his sister's been dead since that night. I'm going to give him some more time and try again

 

[rosemadderlake]

Jmoose, in no way should you feel any pressure to nudge her brother if that puts you in an awkward situation (imo) – He has the info, right? -The nudging is happening on Sylvia’s thread –to whoever is reading, I think.

I do notice there is a new case manager for Sylvia at NamUs (contacts). Next week I’ll follow up and email Kim and ask her if she is no longer the contact. She is connected to the NY State Troopers.org (email).


ETA: If the case mgr. contact is the new contact - maybe you could forward that along to her brother. I can email new contact re: where Kim left off with the age progression info.

 

[Jmoose]

Jmoose, in no way should you feel any pressure to nudge her brother if that puts you in an awkward situation (imo) – He has the info, right? -The nudging is happening on Sylvia’s thread –to whoever is reading, I think.

I do notice there is a new case manager for Sylvia at NamUs (contacts). Next week I’ll follow up and email Kim and ask her if she is no longer the contact. She is connected to the NY State Troopers.org (email).


ETA: If the case mgr. contact is the new contact - maybe you could forward that along to her brother. I can email new contact re: where Kim left off with the age progression info.

Thanks-will do

 

[rosemadderlake]

-Got a nice email back from Kim – she forwarded Kevin’s email (case mgr. @ NamUs) and she said she can also still be contacted regarding Sylvia’s case; they are both at NY State police.

Jmoose-I forwarded her email to you to pass along to Sylvia's brother.

I sure hope he considers an age progression – everyone is expressing the hope for a breakthrough and resolution for Sylvia.

 

[Jmoose]

Sylvia's birthday is coming up next month

 

[alliemay]

It would be nice to think she may be alive, I know those kind of cases are rare though. Took some interest in the Roxann Deihl case, her brother was trying to find her its been since the mid 70's. Happy ending there, she was located alive. Wish something like this would happen in Sylvia's case.

 

[rosemadderlake]

It would be nice to think she may be alive, I know those kind of cases are rare though. Took some interest in the Roxann Deihl case, her brother was trying to find her its been since the mid 70's. Happy ending there, she was located alive. Wish something like this would happen in Sylvia's case.

Wow, wonder what the circumstances are in Ronanne's case... No contact for 40 years... That's a long time... She was just found alive from what I understand. I have wished this so much for Sylvia, but am not too hopeful.

-It will be interesting to hear more about the 'how and why' someone who is found alive after so many, many years would drop off the radar for so long.

Thanks for posting this, Skeet.

 

[rosemadderlake]

Wow, wonder what the circumstances are in Ronanne's case... No contact for 40 years... That's a long time... She was just found alive from what I understand. I have wished this so much for Sylvia, but am not too hopeful.

-It will be interesting to hear more about the 'how and why' someone who is found alive after so many, many years would drop off the radar for so long.

Thanks for posting this, Skeet.

Quoting myself - I really need new glasses! Bbm: Correction: ..."in Roxann's case".

My thought this morning is how Facebook is potentially a very effective tool as it appears to be in Roxann's case. -And it is different from the "official agencies" of law enforcement, government databases, etc. If a Facebook page was created for Sylvia and circulated to her high school and to Wagner College Alumni, Staten Island sites, would it prompt people to share memories of her? Or, in its informality, maybe a tip?

There are great pictures of Sylvia to post to a wider audience - who could forget a beautiful face like hers?

I have always wondered how many people really know she is missing... for almost 40 years...

 

[Jmoose]

I sent a private message to Roxann's brother via the Facebook page, asking a couple of questions that I wanted to try and relate to Sylvia's case, like whether or not Roxann had a SS number, but haven't gotten a response yet. Hard to believe that Roxann disappeared so young and wasn't found until 40 years later, alive and well. In those days, you didn't have to get a SS number as a baby like you do now, and Roxann was too young to have gotten a driver's license, so it would have been incredibly hard to track her down. Sylvia had both a SS number and a driver's license, though-and could only have flown below the radar if she somehow managed to change her name, obtain a new SS number, and gotten a new birth certificate to get a driver's license in the new name (I think). Not impossible, for sure, but difficult. I believe this is one of the reasons that Sylvia's brother thinks she's been dead since the night she disappeared. That, and the circumstances of that night. I've been rolling this around in my head, like everyone else has, for 2 years now, and just can't make the case to myself that she is still alive, even though it is possible that she could be. If she disappeared from her own house when nobody was home to see her leave, then maybe-but her night sounds like so many nights when a woman has been last seen in the company of a man with whom she was known to have had a fight-like Debra Melo up in Massachusetts, for example. I would love to know that Sylvia got fed up with the life she was living and left to change it-I wish there was even a tiny piece of evidence that she had done so, but I haven't seen it.

 

[rosemadderlake]

Jaws, the movie, is coming to my hometown theater this June. “Join us as we celebrate 40 years of this terrifying classic” the Hollywood Nights promo says. -What a film to coincide with Sylvia’s story.

What makes Sylvia’s disappearance different (to me) is that she was supposedly “happy and engaged to be married”, no known history of abusive relationship with her fiancé, no restraining orders. -Also, there was no known other outside issue or threat; other man, stalked, unrequited someone else. She left the car in a very public place. Were the movie tickets produced? Were her eye glasses turned over to LE? -Unbroken? And why was there no publicity? -No public search.

-I really agree, there is little to no evidence that she just walked out on her life, but I also don’t see evidence of an obvious murder/cover-up either.

If she did manage to change her identity she would have been gone for decades, long under the radar before she was run through a check in the USA – only covering one country...

I wish we knew. Whatever the elusive piece was that rendered her family so quiet -- sudden break up, pregnancy, sudden depression, or fear of suicide? -- I think all those things could create a “stand still” along with LE’s POV on adults and free will back in 1975.

We bump her up, and circle around the pieces we know, all the facets of her circumstances--and in repeating these thoughts, I guess I just hope someone out there will search her and see activity on her, and that just maybe it would reel in a break in her case…. One can only hope…

:rose:

 

[rosemadderlake]

Ok, so today I am lobbing some thoughts back and forth in my mind.

…What if -they DID break up… not on the night she disappeared, but before that (BF/F not at her party the week before) and no definitive answer as to why. Maybe they were trying to see if they could get back together that Saturday night? Sylvia’s mood is described as rushed and anxious at the mall with her GF that afternoon. It might explain EL’s reaction when the BF/F came and told her about their fight and leaving the car (racing to find Sylvia). And, it could account for EL’s description of “depressed” on the police report. It would explain why others (family and friends) have grave doubts about the truthfulness of the story they were told. –If they did break up did only a handful of people know? Or was it more widely known among her/their friends? -Hence the silence and suspicion. And if a break-up was known would all this make more sense?

I want to say I think the description of her depression was sudden, “current”. -It can come on like a ton of bricks. –Because the descriptions of Sylvia working summers with her GF (ice cream & painting), tending to animals, and gardens, and collecting sea creatures, being in a marching band, and serious about her studies, and being engaged to be married all seem like outward expressions of someone who loved and lived life fully, and not of someone who was clinically depressed.

That is not to say that her experiences of losing a child (no matter how), transitioning from college to the real world, and quite possibly a big break up wouldn’t have sent her into a tailspin. At the age of 22, experiences are not tempered by wisdom – they can be HUGE.

Was this an accidental or purposeful death/murder/cover-up by her BF/F? Was he really the last person to see her? IF he has talked to LE, does LE let the family know what he said? And who else has talked to LE?

Whatever goes round and round in my thoughts about Sylvia, I keep coming back to the silence in her case – not as a judgement, but because the silence is part of the answer…

 

[Jmoose]

Ok, so today I am lobbing some thoughts back and forth in my mind.

…What if -they DID break up… not on the night she disappeared, but before that (BF/F not at her party the week before) and no definitive answer as to why. Maybe they were trying to see if they could get back together that Saturday night? Sylvia’s mood is described as rushed and anxious at the mall with her GF that afternoon. It might explain EL’s reaction when the BF/F came and told her about their fight and leaving the car (racing to find Sylvia). And, it could account for EL’s description of “depressed” on the police report. It would explain why others (family and friends) have grave doubts about the truthfulness of the story they were told. –If they did break up did only a handful of people know? Or was it more widely known among her/their friends? -Hence the silence and suspicion. And if a break-up was known would all this make more sense?

I want to say I think the description of her depression was sudden, “current”. -It can come on like a ton of bricks. –Because the descriptions of Sylvia working summers with her GF (ice cream & painting), tending to animals, and gardens, and collecting sea creatures, being in a marching band, and serious about her studies, and being engaged to be married all seem like outward expressions of someone who loved and lived life fully, and not of someone who was clinically depressed.

That is not to say that her experiences of losing a child (no matter how), transitioning from college to the real world, and quite possibly a big break up wouldn’t have sent her into a tailspin. At the age of 22, experiences are not tempered by wisdom – they can be HUGE.

Was this an accidental or purposeful death/murder/cover-up by her BF/F? Was he really the last person to see her? IF he has talked to LE, does LE let the family know what he said? And who else has talked to LE?

Whatever goes round and round in my thoughts about Sylvia, I keep coming back to the silence in her case – not as a judgement, but because the silence is part of the answer…

BBM-you have a pretty awesome assessment of what went on here, I think. Silence being part of the answer...that, and the prevailing wisdom of the times, when people believed women ran off, leaving behind no trace of themselves. I wish Sylvia's mother was still alive, so we could ask her some questions.

 

[Jmoose]

Tuesday is Sylvia's birthday-I wonder who will be thinking about her besides us on that day?

 

[Jmoose]

Happy birthday to Sylvia-wherever she may be

 

[IvanaBeverlyPotts]

Happy bday Sylvia. Come home soon...

 

[rosemadderlake]

:cupcake:
Happy Birthday Sylvia - we'll leave the light on for you.

 

[theforgotten]

Bumping for Sylva!

 

[rosemadderlake]

Bumping up for our Sylvia.

Reading about the upcoming docu-series (congratulations Tricia & Websleuths!) and thinking about how the filmmakers grew up on Staten Island and made the film Cropsy brings the focus back to that time, and the unsolved mystery of Sylvia's disappearance almost 40 years ago.

 

[Pink Panther]

Bump.