Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Nadine Mendonça (Massachusetts)

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

When 25-year old Nadine Mendonça went to her favorite hang out in downtown Fall River, Massachusetts for a casual night out, neither she nor her family could’ve expected it would end the way it did. To this day, Nadine’s family is still trying to figure out exactly what happened that July night in 1991, and after over 30 years, where exactly Nadine could be now. If you have any information about the 1991 disappearance of Nadine Mendonça, please contact Massachusetts State Police Lt. Ann Marie Robertson at [phone] or submit an anonymous tip by texting “Bristol” to 274-637. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/nadinemendonca Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

When 25-year-old Nadine Mendonca went to her favorite hangout in downtown Fall River, Massachusetts for a casual night out, neither she nor her family could have expected it would end the way it did. To this day, Nadine's family is still trying to figure out exactly what happened that July night in 1991, and after over 30 years, where exactly Nadine could be now. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the story of Nadine Mendonca on Dark Down East. What Shawn Mendonca remembers most about his big sister is her natural musical talent and her all-around good vibes personality. She was just easy to be around.

And she loved to sing, and she played the guitar. And she was an awesome singer and guitar player. She's been in a few bands. She was good-natured. She liked to make people laugh. And she was always on the ball with things. Very active and very friendly. She was born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts. And though not technically a small town, Nadine knew just about everyone. Her older sister,

Angela Mendonca, told me Nadine made friends easily. She definitely embodied the concept of a stranger is a friend that I haven't met yet. Angela painted a vivid picture of Nadine for me. This 4'10 woman who had to sit on a pillow to see over the dash of her car and who could make anyone laugh by changing the lyrics to a song into a comical parody. Nadine also had a way of catching people off guard, like they underestimated her in some way. That was especially true for the unsuspecting bar patrons she'd challenge at the pool table. She had her pool cue and she used to go play and I watched her play and she was very good. I mean, she used to beat most of the guys. They'd all walk away pissed off because this itty bitty little four foot ten,

barely a hundred pound pipsqueak of a girl was beating all of these big old bubbers, you know, at the game of pool. She had her own custom pool cue and darts, and that's how she liked to unwind on the weekends with her friends. But she was a bit of a party girl, too. You know, back in those years, that kind of was the norm, especially for that part of New England, being in an old mill town there, that was basically becoming an obsolete place to be. A lot of the mills had closed. You know, work was difficult to come by. Many people were moving away because you couldn't find work. In the summer of 1991, Nadine was 25 years old and in a place where a lot of mid-20-somethings find themselves, trying to figure out what comes next. She was laid off the previous year,

and as Angela said, it was a hard time for Nadine to find work. In the meantime, she was living off unemployment checks and had gone back to school to earn a certificate in secretarial skills so she could hopefully find an office job. But Nadine was starting to feel the walls of her hometown closing in on her. She wanted to get away from it, actually. She was wanting to get away from the party scene and from all the old friends that she had been hanging out with, and she wanted to start anew. Angela lived in Texas at the time.

She was a single mom and going back to school while working full-time herself, so she told Nadine that she could come down to Texas to live with her at the time. She was a single mom and going back to school while working full-time herself, so she told Nadine that she could come down to Texas to live with her and help with the baby until she got on her feet. Texas held the promise of a clean slate for Nadine, so she decided to take her sister's advice. By early July, Nadine's flight was booked. She was going to stay with her parents for a few weeks before flying out on August 6th. So she started packing up her things and selling off her furniture

and planning ahead for the big move. Her brother, Sean, was there to help. There didn't seem anything wrong. She was looking forward to have a fresh start. She was looking forward to get her life together and start all over again. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Even though it's been nearly three decades since Sean last saw Nadine, he remembers that time in their lives well. It's not easy to forget

when he spent year after year replaying the events of that summer and trying to make sense of the one night in July of 1991 when their entire lives were plunged into a tailspin. On the evening of July 12th, 1991, Nadine started her Friday night attending the wake of a friend, and then she stopped back into her apartment to change outfits and freshen up for a night out of pool and darts with the girls. It was Nadine's weekend routine. Friends, pool, partying. But it's possible that this Friday night was unique or more significant than any previous Friday night, because she'd be wheels up for Texas soon. It would have been one of Nadine's last hurrahs at her usual spot in Fall River. Nadine frequented a bar on Pleasant Street

called Jake's Saloon, and witnesses placed her there for several hours on Friday night and into the early hours of Saturday morning. Now, Nadine was very close with her family. She called her parents every night to check in when she got home, and if it was a late night out like this one promised to be, she'd call them in the morning too. Sean told me that their parents heard from Nadine on Friday night. She last checked in around 8pm before she left her apartment to head to Jake's saloon. But Nadine didn't call in the morning as would have been typical or expected, so their mother tried to call her apartment, but there was no answer. And this struck Nadine's father, Fernando, as odd. So he drove by her place and noticed her

car wasn't parked outside. This was strange, but the Mendonca family waited out Saturday night, expecting Nadine would call or stop in to visit her mother and father. But again, no Nadine. Another call to her apartment on Sunday morning went unanswered. Even though it was out of character for Nadine to be MIA for over 48 hours, she was an adult with her own life. Her family thought there had to be an innocent explanation. So they tried to temper their concerns for a little while longer. But by the morning of Monday, July 15th, there was no more

waiting. So my dad and I went to the Fall River PD to report a missing, and that's when the nightmare began. In the original missing persons report filed with Fall River Police on July 15th, Fernando told the officer exactly what we know up until this point, that he'd last had contact with his daughter around 8pm on Friday, July 12th, and that her car was missing all weekend. There are only a few notes in the remarks section of the report, but it appears Fernando also told police he'd spoken to a guy Nadine had been dating, and he talked to Nadine's landlord, but neither had seen or heard from Nadine had been dating, and he talked to Nadine's landlord, but neither had seen or heard from Nadine and they didn't know where she was. Now, the notes on the original incident report are

chaotic, to say the least. But from what I can gather, it looks like Fall River PD started making calls on July 16th, the day after Nadine was reported missing. The partially redacted record shows a series of phone calls to individuals in Massachusetts and Texas. Some are marked no answer, and others are marked answering machine. But other than that, there's no real substance to those phone calls in the meager six pages of case documents I have to work with. The missing person report details what Nadine Mendonca was last seen wearing that night. A white sweater dress, black nylons, black shoes, and a purse, as well as a description of her car, a 1980 black Chevrolet Monte Carlo with red pinstripes. Sean told me Nadine's photo and that description of her car

made the news the same week, and the Fall River community was on the lookout for Nadine. During that early phase of the investigation, police learned through witness interviews that Nadine was playing pool that Friday night at Jake's Saloon as expected, but she was also hanging out with some guy. What we were told is that she left with somebody and went to New Bedford.

And next thing you know it, she disappeared. David Weber reported for the Boston Herald that Nadine stayed at Jake's Saloon until around 2 a.m. and then left with a guy in her car, reportedly to give him a ride home to New Bedford about 20 minutes away from Fall River. Of course, police identified the man Nadine left with that night and interviewed him. Fall River Police Captain Kathleen Moniz told the Boston Herald that the man was a friend of Nadine's, and the friend was forthright with police, saying that Nadine did give him a ride home during the early morning hours of July 13th, but she left after dropping him off.

Captain Moniz said investigators corroborated the story and it held up. So by the sounds of it, police took his story as fact and moved on, trying to figure out where Nadine went next. Locating Nadine's car would have been key to tracking her movements that night, but it still hadn't turned up almost two weeks after she was officially reported missing. The description of her Monte Carlo continued to run in the local newspapers, and on Sunday, July 28th, the details of Nadine's car were front of mind for a local cab driver as she weaved through the streets of New Bedford. Turning onto Weld Street, the driver took notice of a car parked on the south side of the road. It was a black Monte Carlo, and the driver's side window was smashed out.

The license plate confirmed it. This was Nadine Mendonca's car. And what investigators found inside left everyone reeling with the fear that something truly terrible had happened to Nadine. At 3.15 p.m. that Sunday, Detective Jeffrey Mayer of the Major Crimes Identification Bureau responded to the scene of the vehicle at 214 Weld Street. An article by Michelle Caruso for the Boston Herald states that investigators speculated that a smash-and-grab break-in may have occurred after the car was parked there, because in addition to the broken window, it appeared the stereo was missing from the car. Detective Mayer photographed the car there on the street before it was transported to the New Bedford Police Station for further processing. Once at the police station,

Detective Mayer continued his evidence collection, focusing on the trunk of the car. He had to break the lock to get into it. But as the trunk opened, his eyes widened. His supplementary report states only that he, quote, observed evidence of a possible homicide, end quote. At that moment, he called the district attorney's office and Captain Moniz. State police arrived at the garage a few hours later to assist in the collection of evidence. They worked until after 11 that night and jumped back in the next morning, photographing, dusting for prints, and collecting samples from the interior and exterior of the vehicle. It was that day,

July 29th, that details reached the media of what police had found in Nadine's car. The trunk was covered in blood. Later lab analysis confirmed the source was human, but Angela told me that the initial comparison testing to DNA samples provided by Nadine's parents came back inconclusive. Based on other evidence in the trunk, though, there was a strong possibility it was Nadine's blood. They had found a ring that had been my father's ring that my sister used to, you know, she fell in love with my father's tiger's eye ring.

And he gave it to her and she used to wear it on a necklace. And they found that in the trunk of the car. They found one of her shoes in the trunk of the car. They found a pillow that she used to use in order to sit on, in order to see over the dashboard when she was driving because she was so short. But the strangest thing that I had been told was they found her wallet underneath the hood of the car. Angela still can't make sense of that last detail. Why was her sister's wallet underneath the hood? How did it get there and what did it mean? There's nothing in the case

file documents I have that even mentions the existence of a wallet, so I can't begin to answer those questions, but it does seem odd. The car was transported to the Massachusetts State Police Barracks in Middleborough, where it would be kept in evidence and further processed for prints and hair and fibers and anything else that might give some clue as to what happened to Nadine and who was responsible. Despite the evidence, Nadine Mendonca was still considered a missing person. To Sean's recollection, though, the investigation did amp up in the weeks following, and it was as active as it would ever be.

His family felt confident in Fall River PD, and they stayed in touch, even though updates were scarce. Every week, my mother would call to find out what was going on with my sister's case, any new evidence. And the police back then at the time, and I believe they were doing their job at the time, they were just stunned. They didn't know how she, they were stunned how she just disappeared without a trace.

And it was like every week they'd go over new evidence. And it was the same thing. Police were running through possible witnesses, talking to people who were at Jake's Saloon on July 12th and 13th, and calling up Nadine's friends and acquaintances to try to shake out some info about the people Nadine hung around. According to Sean, police talked to one of the guys Nadine had recently dated, but he had a solid alibi, so they crossed him off the list. Angela believes her sister was seeing a few guys on and off in the past year, but nothing serious,

and those few men were checked out, but those leads didn't seem to go anywhere either. Now, the man Nadine reportedly drove home on the night she disappeared, whose name is not publicly disclosed, he isn't referred to as a suspect in any of the source material I've been able to find. But to Angela's knowledge, that man was the last person to see Nadine before she disappeared. The only real detailed notes I have of any interviews police conducted during that time are from that supplementary report by Detective Mayer, who had also processed Nadine's car for evidence. Shortly after Nadine's car was discovered, that detective spoke with a man, I'll call

David, about another man, I'll call Nicholas. According to David, Nicholas said he spent Friday, July 12th and Saturday, July 13th partying in New Bedford with a woman whose name was redacted in the report. David found it odd because to his knowledge, Nicholas and this woman didn't have any relationship. On the same day, state police collected evidence from a 1981 Ford Mustang, but the owner's name is redacted. It's unclear why this Mustang was of interest to

the police or if it belonged to David or Nicholas or someone else entirely. With all the redactions and the files I have, it's hard to figure out who they're talking to and about. Was either David or Nicholas the same guy with Nadine on the night of her disappearance? Was either man a suspect or a person of interest? Who was the woman that Nicholas was partying with? Was it Nadine? There's definitely something in there, but I can't make sense of it from the mere six pages of the Fall River case file that Sean was able to obtain and share with me. Despite efforts to obtain additional documents, Fall River PD files prior to 2003 were purged. I sent FOIA requests to the district court, to the Bristol County DA's office, and to state police for more information, but as of this episode's recording, I haven't received

anything, and the Bristol County DA's office said they actually couldn't release anything to me because the case was considered open and active. There's also frustratingly little reported about Nadine's case after 1991, and all the news articles just regurgitate the same details about the night of the 12th. So I don't know what else was done or what else investigators have learned in the last 30 plus years. So I was running into a wall with my own reporting. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was at play here that no one was talking about yet. Both Sean and Angela said that Nadine wanted a fresh start, and she would have been boarding a plane to Texas just a few weeks later

had she not disappeared. Was it a coincidence, the timing of her disappearance? Or did someone know Nadine was leaving town and wanted to make sure she never got that chance? I asked Sean what he thought the motive could possibly be for someone to do something to Nadine. My sister wasn't working at the time, so it couldn't have been money. I think it was a very bad situation she got into, and it got very violent, and they killed her. I think it was a very volatile, she was just in a bad situation. A bad situation. Was Nadine in over her head,

wrapped up in some dangerous stuff with dangerous people? Well, after some research, I got a whole new perspective on this story. It turns out Jake's saloon wasn't just a local watering hole. Sean was not a fan of Jake's saloon, to put it lightly. It was a very bad place. Bad crowd, bad environment. I went once with her and I never went again. He didn't elaborate during our initial interview, but after some digging of my own, I got a much clearer sense of what the scene might have been like at Jake's Saloon when Nad opened in 1976 at 1833 Pleasant Street in Fall River, and it is now permanently closed, but in its operating years, it was a restaurant and lounge open into the wee hours of the morning. And although they served alcohol, it seems like they had a hard time keeping their license

to do so. I located an appeal decision from 2011 regarding the liquor license for Jake's Saloon. In the decision, the Alcohol Beverages Control Commission listed off abundant evidence of illegal activity going down at the establishment. Now, the appeal decision lists specific incidents following an investigation in 2010 and 2011, nearly two decades after Nadine hung out there. But the document references issues dating back to 1990 and police responding to literally hundreds of incidents there through the early 90s.

Jake's Saloon had its liquor license suspended four times between 1995 and 1996 and paid thousands of dollars in fines for violations in the years following. Then, a formal investigation was launched into alleged illegal activity happening at the establishment in 2010 after a confidential reliable witness reported that they'd witnessed the sale of various narcotics inside the bar and knew that one of the regular patrons planned to sell a firearm inside Jake's. On March 10, 2011, the witness was allegedly robbed at gunpoint in the bathroom while working as an undercover informant for police. Police obtained a search warrant for Jake's saloon and executed it the same night their informant was robbed. Officers found during their search various drug paraphernalia,

a bag of marijuana, a pipe believed to be used for crack cocaine, and a 9mm firearm in a vehicle parked outside of the bar that was traced to the man who allegedly held the informant at gunpoint. Other than the gun, everything police found during their search was pretty much in plain view. Although the owner of the bar and the employees told police that they had no idea all of that was going on, it seemed like an open secret that Jake's was a hotbed for this kind of thing. And it's possible Nadine may have been in the middle of it all. I knew she had an affinity for cocaine. I do not believe that she was involved in any sex work or any trafficking, but a number of the people that she hung out with were drug dealers. Sean also believes that Nadine was wrapped up in the drug scene in some way,

but he actually does think it's possible Nadine could have been involved with sex work too. However, as far as I can tell, Nadine didn't have a criminal record with any charges relating to sex work or illegal drugs. In all the previous coverage I've seen about Nadine's case, no one has mentioned anything about a motive for Nadine's suspicious disappearance, and I haven anything about a motive for Nadine's suspicious disappearance, and I haven't found any source that's touched on the alleged activities at her favorite hangout. It feels like a really big piece of the story to neglect, though I can understand why these topics weren't broadcast far and wide at any point over the last 30 plus years, especially

by her family. There can be a reluctance to share the parts of someone's story that could somehow preclude them from the same attention and justice that a quote-unquote innocent victim might get. Angela and Sean want one thing to be clear. Nadine didn't deserve whatever happened to her, no matter what. So with a little more to go on, I started to look at Nadine Mendonca's disappearance through a different lens. That's when I fell deep into a rabbit hole. Between March of 1988 and April of 1989, 11 women disappeared all from the same area in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The remains of nine of those women were discovered on the side of the highway in Bristol and Plymouth counties.

The disappearances and deaths of Robin Rhodes, Rochelle Clifford Dopierala, Debra Lynn McConnell, Debra Medeiros, Christine Montero, Sandra Botello, Don Mendez, Marilyn Roberts,

Nancy Paiva, Deborah Greenlaw DeMello, and Mary Rose Santos have all been attributed to the same suspected killer, the so-called, and yet to be identified, New Bedford Highway Serial Killer. Police linked the cases of these 11 women because they believed they all fit the same victimology. According to Maureen Boyle, who digs into the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer case in her book, Shallow Graves, the women were known to engage in sex work and were people with

substance use disorder. And what's more, one of the women, Deborah Medeiros, was from Fall River, where Nadine was from. So if what Sean and Angela suspect is true about their sister, then there are some similarities in victimology to the murders attributed to the New Bedford Highway serial killer. But what raised my eyebrow even more was this. Michelle Caruso reported for the Boston Herald in 1991 that the area where Nadine's car was discovered, New Bedford's Weld Square, was considered a sort of quote-unquote red light district. It was a spot frequented by some of the victims in the New Bedford Highway case. Nadine's father, Fernando, had even wondered if his daughter's disappearance might be connected to the highway killings given the parallels. He spoke with David Weber of the Boston Herald in

1991, saying, quote, I get the feeling that her body might be in the same location where they found those other bodies, end quote. As obvious as the similarities are, there are also some circumstances that point away from a possible connection. The body of one of the highway victims, Sandra Botello, was discovered on April 24th, 1989, and she would be the last of nine victims found in that case. The discovery of Sandra's remains was more than two years before Nadine disappeared in 1991. The New Bedford Highway investigation had identified multiple suspects by then. Also, two days before Nadine's car was found in New Bedford, one suspect, Anthony DeGrazia, died by suicide. He'd never been charged in connection with any of the highway killings.

Another suspect, Kenneth Ponte, was charged with the murder of Rochelle Dopierala in 1990. But then the same day Nadine's car was found, those charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. I don't know if police have determined exactly how long Nadine's car had been in Weld Square before it was discovered, so it's difficult to determine if these overlapping events are connected or simply coincidental. But it does show that things were happening in the New Bedford Highway serial killer investigation during the time of Nadine's disappearance. However, it seems the killer, if it is just one person as police have theorized,

was no longer active by the time Nadine went missing. Back in 1991, Fall River Police did check with state police on a possible link to the highway killings, but Captain Moniz said the detectives didn't believe there was any connection and they didn't have any evidence that Nadine's disappearance was related to those cases. If law enforcement took the theory any further back then or since, I can't be sure. Because almost as soon as the investigation ramped up after the discovery of Nadine's car, the whole thing fizzled out and the case turned ice cold. Even more than 30 years later now, Nadine's case is still classified

by the Bristol County District Attorney's Office as a missing persons case. But to Sean, there's no question about what happened to his sister. They consider it an unsolved case. Me, it's an automatic homicide. I know she was murdered. Several years passed after her disappearance without any updates, and life had to go on.

Nadine remained at the front of their minds, but with the loss of her, the Mendonca family began to splinter. Their mother passed away five years later in 1996. The surviving Mendonca siblings grew apart. Sean said he stayed close with his father, Fernando, though, and they talked about Nadine and her case all the time. About 20 years after Nadine's disappearance, Fernando's health began to decline in his late 80s and early 90s, and he passed away in 2017. But before he died, Sean made his father a promise.

I said, I'm going to do everything I can to get Nadine's case solved. So either this case is going to go down the drain, or I'm going to be dead. There's no if and when. This is either going to be solved, or I'm going to die before it gets solved. And the next summer, Sean was already making good on his promise. He knew that forensic DNA had come a long way since his sister disappeared, and he wanted to see if new testing could be done on the evidence that he knew about in Nadine's case, primarily her car. My father and I always wondered what happened to my sister Nadine's car. Always wondered. We always thought if it's in evidence, they got to keep the car in Middle Bowl State Police barracks until the crime is solved. By early August of 2018, Nadine's case had

been handed over to the Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Unit. So, Sean picked up the phone to call Lieutenant Ann Marie Robertson, who oversees the unit. According to Sean, the conversation was not at all what he expected to hear. Where's my sister's car? Is it still at the Middle Bowl State Police barracks? The first thing they said to me, and I kind of lost it, what car? I said, what do you mean, what car? The car my sister's car was found in New Bedford. What do you mean, what car? I went off. You guys are cops and you don't know where that car is? What the hell? Oh, that was the start of it. Sean kept handwritten notes from that summer with the dates of each phone call he made and the subject of those calls.

On August 2nd, he notes that Lt. Robertson said she would call him when they determined if Nadine's car was still at the state police barracks in Middleborough. His notes say that on August 15th, Lt. Robertson was still working on where the car went. Months later, on October 5th, they spoke again. He asked if they'd located Nadine's 1980 Monte Carlo yet, and according to Sean, Lieutenant Robertson said she found a letter that had been sent to his father, asking for permission to destroy the car, as evidence was collected from it. Sean was shocked. His father never mentioned giving permission for the car to be destroyed or even receiving a letter. If he did get a letter, Sean firmly believes Fernando would have kept it

and Sean would have seen it. I said, you know what, my father's from day one and we've always talked about it. I said my father would save a 50-year receipt from a pair of $5 shoes he bought in 1950. Don't you think my father would save that letter? I said, I'll be at the police department in 5, 10 minutes. You show me that letter. Never show me that letter, nothing.

Since that conversation in 2018, Sean still has never seen the letter supposedly sent to his father about Nadine's car. He's asked about it numerous times, but has never received or viewed a copy. I reached out to the Bristol County DA's office to ask about the letter in the car. I spoke with Director of Communications Greg Migliotti, and he told me that a letter of this nature would have been sent 20 or more years ago, and either a response with permission or a lack of response after a certain period of time would have meant that property, in this case a car, was disposed of after all evidence was collected from it. That evidence would be carefully stored long after the property it was

collected from was destroyed. He didn't speak specifically about Nadine's case, but he told me this was procedure. Regardless of procedure, this letter is a big sticking point for Sean. If it exists, he wants to know why he can't just see it. To Sean, the whole car and letter situation is indicative of investigators not caring about his sister's case. He is no longer in contact with detectives. Angela has been active in Nadine's case in recent years, though. She told me that in 2020, she hand-delivered an envelope to investigators

that Nadine had mailed her all the way back in 1991. Nadine had sent Angela her resume to drop off at potential employers in Texas ahead of her move, and the envelope was sealed and stamped the old-fashioned way. Nadine licked it. Angela said that investigators were just recently able to compare the samples on the envelope to the profile of the blood found in the trunk of Nadine's car, and finally concluded after more than 30 years that it was Nadine's blood, as they had all surmised. Angela continues to stay in touch with the team on Nadine's case, but updates have been far and few between. Communications Director Greg Migliotti told me that the Bristol County District Attorney's Office has worked to bring new

attention to a number of cases, including Nadine's, as part of the Cold Case Unit's expansion of missing persons cases announced back in the summer of 2022. Bringing the names of missing people in Massachusetts back into the public awareness remains a high priority for the administration. In a 2022 press release, District Attorney Tom Quinn said, quote, We are trying to locate each and every one of these missing persons in order to bring some closure to families and friends who have been searching for their loved ones for years. It is also likely that in some of these cases, people have gone missing as the result of foul play and criminal conduct. At the heart of our mission is bringing justice to victims,

end quote. Sean will never stop rehashing the details of Nadine's disappearance and wishing he could just turn back the clock and prevent it from ever happening. I've dealt with this for 32 and a half years. It's always on my mind. It bothers me all the time what happened with her. It makes me wish I had been there the night she disappeared to at least stop her from wherever the hell she was going.

It's just, it's very frustrating not knowing where she's at. I know she's dead. I know she's dead. The blood in the trunk, all the evidence, I know she's dead. Where the body was put at, I have no idea. With all the years to think about what happened on the night of July 12th, 1991, Sean has developed his own theories about the person or persons responsible for his sister's presumed death. Now he just wants justice to catch up, hopefully sooner rather than later. At least I can say to go to my parents' grave and say, Mom, Dad, I got the bastards that killed Nadine. More than anything, they just want to bring their sister home.

I really hope that by some miracle that, you know, my sister's case gets resolved, that they are able to find some remains so that we can put her to rest. You know, I'm at the point where I don't really care whether or not somebody becomes accountable. I just would like to have my sister back. Until that day, they will keep the memory of their sister close. My favorite song was called Rhinestone Cowboy from Glen Campbell. And this was when I was in the first grade in elementary school. My sister was in sixth at the time.

And the teachers wanted me to sing Rhinestone Cowboy in front of the class. And I asked, can I get my sister Nadine? Yep, you can. So I went to my sister's class and uh asked for my sister my sister came to my classroom and we sang that never forget that yep I'll never forget that every time I hear that I always think at that time my sister came to my classroom to sing that in front of the other classmates. Yep. Here's my sister in a nutshell. We went grocery shopping and we're going down the detergent aisle and out of nowhere she grabs this the largest box of surf detergent and she put it on the floor and jumped up on it because the Beach Boys were playing Surfer Girl. And she was dancing on this box of surf, pretending like she was surfing on a surfboard, dancing to the Beach Boys tune, Surfer Girl.

That is my sister. If you have any information about the 1991 disappearance of Nadine Mendonca, please contact Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant Anne Marie Robertson at 508-961-1918 or submit an anonymous tip online or by texting

Bristol to 274 274637. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck.

So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?