Every Town - Terrifying Case: 10 year Old Amy Mihaljevic Missing back in 1989 - Bay Village, OH

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Amy Mihaljevic from Bay Village Ohio, would’ve been in her early 40’s today, and who knows what her life would have looked like had she escaped the clutches of her captor back in 1989. On the evening of Oct. 27th that year,  a brief but chilling flash news announced, “Bay Village Police are seeking a little girl who failed to return home from school late this afternoon.” That girl was 10-year old Amy Renee Mihaljevic.--------------------------------------------💀 Exclusive Video Content & Access: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 🥇 Watch This Episode on Youtube!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbXm5YJ7_KQ&ab_channel=ScaryMysteries--------------------------------------------🎧 Scary Mysteries PodcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scary-mysteries/id1273612861Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkTAll Others: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579 Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine, because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between. With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime.

Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Everytown. Thank you guys so much for tuning into our podcast. If you guys enjoy listening to Everytown, then I wanted to let you know that there are always a video component to each episode over on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. They're really well put together and put faces to the names, so you can always head over to our Scary Mysteries YouTube channel if you want to view them. There's also two other videos that come out on our YouTube channel. each and every Monday and Wednesday, where we cover strange and creepy stories from all around the world.

Those can also be listened to in podcast form on our other podcast channel called Scary Mysteries. We have tons of cool content for you all around. Thanks so much for the support and tuning in. Hope you enjoy the episode. Every town has a dark side. Amy Mihiljavik from Bay Village, Ohio, would have been in her early 40s. today. And who really knows what her life would have looked like, that she escaped the clutches of her captor back in 1989. Back then, rookie cop Mark Spetzel was working in the town.

On October 27th was talking to a class of fifth graders about safety in dealing with strangers. You see, up until then, the town of Bay Village was the perfect place to raise a family. There were no cases of murder, rape, or kidnappings ever, and in fact the only crime the town had seen were three robberies, two assaults, and 12 car thefts in its history. But then, early in the evening, on that day just before Halloween, a brief but chilling news flash announced, Bay Village police are seeking a little girl who failed to return home from school late this afternoon.

That girl was in the Bay Middle School class, the police officer Spatzel addressed earlier that day. And it was 10-year-old Amy Mahiljavik. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, and welcome to this episode of Everytown. We'll get into Amy's story in a moment, but remember that if you'd like to watch this as a video, and head over to our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. And if you have any stories you'd like us to look into, then let us know in the comments below over there.

Plus, get all the visuals to go along. with this story. But right now, let's go back to 1989 in Bay Village, Ohio, where we'll take a look of the details in Amy's story. 32 years later, her case has become the longest active investigation in FBI history. It's never gone cold. The sad fact is that Amy's case, one of the most intense child searches in local history, still remains unsolved. In commemoration of the 30th anniversary, of Amy's death in October of 2019. Her father, Mark, admitted that no matter how hard he tries to forget his family's worst tragedy, he can't stop thinking about it, at least twice a week.

Since Amy passed, Mark had separated from Amy's mother, Margaret McNuddy, who also passed away of Lupus back in 2001. Amy's older brother Jason had finished college, got married, and started a family of his own. while Mark himself had found happiness again with his second wife. Yet nothing could wipe away the sadness every time he remembered the day that changed his life forever. As Mark said, It seemed like yesterday, like it just happened.

Amy's abduction and homicide has become a story that keeps haunting the Bay Village Police Department, which today contains a database of more than 12,000 names connected to the investigation. So what really transpired on that unfortunate day of October 27, 1989? The last memory of everyone about Amy was that of a 10-year-old fifth-grade schoolgirl who was well-loved for being cheerful, bright, smart, and outgoing. Just like other kids or age, Amy enjoyed watching TV, binging on pizza, and spending time with friends. Most of all, though, she loved horseback riding on weekends at Holly Hill's farm.

Just a few days prior to Amy's disappearance, she received a phone call at their home while alone after school. It was from an anonymous caller which investigators have labeled as the unknown man. He claimed to be a co-worker of Amy's mother Margaret at trade in time selling classified ads. And according to investigators, the unknown man's phone call to Amy went like this. I work with your mother. She just got a promotion. If you'd like, I can meet you after school and help you pick out a present for her, and you can have one too. Just don't tell anyone about this. Let's not ruin the surprise. The truth was,

though, Margaret didn't get a promotion. The impressionable 10-year-old girl kept her promise to the identified caller not to tell her mother, but Amy was perhaps too excited not to share the caller's plan with a few friends. She told them she would be meeting the call her. this man on Friday of that week for a shopping spree. None of Amy's friends who knew the secret plan thought it was odd, so they didn't say a single word to any adult. And then came that much-awaited Friday for Amy. On October 27, 1989 classes for the fifth graders at Bay Village Middle School

ended at 2.10 p.m. At dismissal time, Amy barged out of her classroom, dressed in a pale green sweatsuit with lavendar. lavender trim, green sweatpants, with her blonde hair a bit disheveled. Carrying her blue denim book bag with red piping, Amy passed by her blue bicycle parked at the gate. Instead of peddling it back home on Linford Drive, she headed east onto Wolf Road. While walking, Amy caught up with her classmate Olivia, who wondered why her pal took that direction. I'm meeting someone, I'm meeting a friend, said Amy.

When they reached the Bay Square Shopping Center, about a quarter of a mile down the road, Amy walked across the nearly empty parking lot towards the ice cream shop, Baskin Robbins. There, she waited outside, sitting on a bench, twirling around a pole, seemingly without a care in the world. She was spotted by a group of fifth-grade boys who called her out, but Amy just ignored them. Another girl, concealed as Maddie, from the village school, kept an eye on Amy and the boys hoping that they wouldn't start picking on her. Then Maddie saw a man who walked up to Amy at around 2.45 p.m. He was wearing a beige windbreaker with plaid lining,

front-press khakis and a button-up shirt. This man had thick, brushy hair above his eyes. Maddie watched as the unknown man leaned down and whispered something into Amy's ear, then put his arm around her shoulders and let her away in the parking lot. Maggie assumed it was Amy's dad getting her, only because she didn't know Mark Mihuljavik. The scene seemed normal and unsuspicious, even to those manning the Bay Village police station just across the shopping center. Not a single lawman remembered seeing the man. Amy's 13-year-old brother Jason came home a little past 3 p.m. that day, and he immediately

noticed Amy's absence. Usually his younger sister went home an hour earlier than him. and both of them would call up their mother at work just to say hi, we're home. It was their pattern after each school day without fail. But on that particular afternoon, Jason immediately sounded the alarm. When Margaret received her son's call, she was only mildly concerned because Amy had told her about trying out for a chorus group. It, of course, would have been a lot easier at cell phones become a staple in the 80s, but of course they hadn't.

Then at 3.30, Jason informed his mom that Amy still wasn't home. Although Margaret thought Amy had a reason to be late, her concern prunted her to leave work and head home. Then, Amy called, a brief call that truly meant the world to Margaret, who assumed her daughter was calling from home. When asked how her tryout went, Amy said, okay. And when I asked how she was doing, Amy replied, fine. Margaret thought the single word replies from Amy were unusual coming from her bit of a chatterbox daughter. And it turned out that this was the last time that Margaret ever would speak to Amy. After the brief phone call, Margaret's motherly instincts told her to rush home, where she met Jason, and he gave her the dreaded line, Mom, she's still not here. The anxious mother

then drove to Amy's school, but found the building closed and empty, except for Amy's aquacolored bicycle, with a white wicker basket, alone and abandoned at the rack. For Margaret, it seemingly confirmed her bad suspicion about Amy's situation, so she hurriedly drove to the local police headquarters to report her missing daughter. By 5.14 p.m., the first police bulletin provided a full description of Amy to the officers on duty and likewise informed their counterparts in Westlake, Rocky River, Fairview Park, and Avon Lake. Amy's father, Mark, came home at 6 p.m., from a business trip that he was attending in Cincinnati, as he was a General Motors customer service representative.

Tall, stocky, and broad-shouldered. Mark was silently shocked when he learned of the bad news, while his wife was all frantic and hysterical. Then Mark did, the only thing he could do, which was look for his daughter. A big group composed of authorities and the Mahaljeviks family's friends joined Mark in searching for Amy at her school, then at Lake Erie down to French Creek. They were all pointing their flashlights in every nook and cranny while calling out Amy's name. Members of the community offered more vehicles for the search operation, boats to scan the lake front, and even dogs to search the woods. But their efforts all prove futile.

After six hours of looking for the abducted girl, the odds of successfully recovering Amy had dimmed. And as the darkest night for the Mahaljevik family passed, a new dawn came without a promise, but hope wasn't lost in the Bay Village residents and authorities. The FBI was then alerted the following day on October 28th, and joined city and neighboring police, highway patrol, metro park rangers, and more volunteers, and the frantic search for Amy. FBI lead investigator, special agent Dick Wren, then received some troubling information

from Amy's close friend, a daughter of their neighbors. She told Ren about the call and the plan Amy was told about the unknown man, which was confirmed by Amy's brother and other friends. For the investigators, it was a bombshell in the case. Amy was not randomly kidnapped, and it wasn't an impossible.

impulsive criminal act. The perpetrator was somebody intelligent and calculating who took time crafting his plan and definitely knew about the going-ons in the Mahaljavik home, the work of Margaret and the Bay Village neighborhood as a whole. He was bold enough to lure Amy into his well-planned scheme and as audacious to meet her in the middle of the day at a shopping center just across from a police station. The FBI's behavioral scientists created a profile of the suspect then. The offender was a white male in his mid to late 30s at the time that the crime was committed, which was older than average for a first-time child aggressor. He wasn't remarkable in appearance within the average range of height, wait, and build. He may look

presentable, but not accomplished or professional. He is socially marginalized, according to an FBI special agent for the National Center for the analysis of violent crime. The two girls who saw Amy with the unknown man described him to a criminal sketch artist, but neither Mark nor Margaret recognized the man in the drawing. It was also discovered that three other girls around Amy's age received such phone calls around that same time. These girls went to school in North Olmsted, a suburb about five, miles away from Bay Village. Weeks before Amy went missing, these girls were lured by the unidentified caller in a scheme

similar that got Amy into deep trouble. But this part of the investigation and the identity of the three girls were kept by the FBI and the Bay Village police for 19 years and was only mentioned in 2006. The only difference between these girls and Amy was that they didn't take the bait and are still alive, while Amy succumbed to the unknown man's seduction, and the rest is history that will perpetually haunt the Mahaljevex and Bay Village as a whole. In the next three months after Amy had disappeared, the intense search for her continued, which involved every conceivable law enforcement agency and hundreds of volunteers. The numbers were staggering. Federal, state,

county and local law enforcement personnel logged more than 60,000 official hours and thousands more off the clock. Hundreds of promising tips were tracked down and dismissed. 20,000 interviews conducted, 120 potential suspects investigated and questioned intensely. 8,000 leads pursued and then abandoned and 2 million copies of Amy posters distributed. This was, was described as the biggest search in Ohio since the disappearance of Beverly Pot, a 10-year-old Cleveland girl, who also disappeared after attending a show in a nearby park back in August 24th of 1951. But unlike Beverly, who was never found, Amy was finally discovered more than three months later, cold and breathless. On a dreary morning on February 8, 1990, Janet Seabold was jogging

alongside a silent stretch off County Road 1181 in Ruggles Township, a rural area in Ashland County, when she stopped in her tracks upon seeing a small figure lying face down in a nearby desolate field. There was more than 50 miles southwest of Bay Village, and at 8 a.m., Ashland County Deputy Chief Carl Richard received a call, and he immediately responded. Within an hour, investigators realized the dead body, along to Amy. She was clad in the pale green sweatshirt that she had worn on the day she went

missing. Richard said, the body had decomposed. It appeared that it had been there for a while. Amy was stabbed twice in the neck and forcefully hit in the head with a blunt object. Cuyoga County Coroner Elizabeth Mulridge determined dreadful acts after conducting an autopsy with subsequent examination by FBI scientists. Amy had been dead for some time, but she was not killed immediately. Evidence found at the scene of the crime hinted that Amy's body was dumped in the field shortly after her kidnapping. But she had taken at least one meal after her abduction,

some sort of soy substance, possibly an artificial chicken product or Chinese food. They surmised that Amy was murdered a day or two after her abduction and was killed in a quick but brutal manner. Other evidence found included the presence of yellow or gold-colored fibers on Amy's body, three strands of hair, and mitochondrial DNA that usually comes from bones and hair. But what was shocking was the presence of blood in Amy's underwear, which gave rise to the possibility that she was also sexually assaulted. Wayne Lord, supervisory special agent with the FBI's child abduction,

and serial killer unit, thus quipped, this was a sex crime. Amy was a targeted victim, specifically selected by this man with criminal sexual intent, and there are clear patterns of behavior subsequent to a sex crime like this. Investigators were certain that Amy's clothes were removed, then put back on after she was dead. All except for her shoes and earrings that were among the missing belongings of Amy.

Gone were. her black leather ankle boots with vertical rows of silvery studs, earrings designed in tiny blue turquoise silhouettes of a horse's head mounted on gold metallic studs. Plain white nylon windbreaker, school backpack and denim blue design with red piping and black plastic buckles. In a sleek black leather folder with brass clasp and blazoned with the Buick logo and the line best in class that her dad gave her. With regards to these missing things, Special Agent Lord said, this was usually a case wherein the sex offender keeps items from the victim most likely as a

souvenir or as a gift to someone else. And why was Amy brought to Ashland County in the first place? Well, they say it wasn't a random choice either. Lord added, when you are disposing of something that could ruin your entire life, you're going to be careful. The killer wasn't only familiar and comfortable with Bay Village, but with the areas in Ashland as well. And he knew dumping Amy's remains there would go undiscovered for weeks or months. So now, with all this evidence and leads, could one of the hundreds of suspects be finally unmasked as the unknown man? Authorities had more than a hundred suspects, mostly men with shady past and histories of sexual misadventures and vague connections to Bay Village.

Many resembled the sketch of the purported unknown man but who otherwise couldn't be linked to the crime. Others were convicted sex offenders, not yet thrown behind bars at the time of Amy's murder. Even people living near the Mahaljevaks, including the parents of Amy's closest friends, were investigated also. But only a handful of them had crossed paths with Amy and the three other girls who also received the phone calls luring them to the village shopping center. The information about the girls from North Olmsted became significant then, as it was determined that Amy and the three girls had all visited the local Lake Erie Nature and Science Center and that they may have signed

the visitor's logbook and written their phone numbers down as well as addresses. Of the many suspects, the most controversial one, was Dean Runkle. Maddie, the girl who witnessed Amy meeting the unknown man, had identified Runkle's close resemblance to Amy's abductor, based on a photo she saw in writer James Renner's blog. Renner had written a book about Amy's unsolved case, and Maddie said, There have not been many photos that have been this close.

I would definitely tell them to investigate this guy. Investigation showed that Runkle did volunteer work at Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, and had taught at Norrude Jr. High in Amherst about 20 miles from Bay Village at the time that Amy disappeared. There have also been stories about his sexual innuendos with his students, both males and females. Runkel also drove a gold-colored Grand Prix, which matched the vehicle description. Witnesses claimed to have seen Amian on the afternoon that she disappeared. Remember the gold-colored fibers found on Amy's body. Runkle was born in North London in Huron County, Ohio,

and grew up on a farmhouse just a couple miles from where Amy's body was dumped. Investigators from Bay Village and the FBI knew Runkle, and they even seemed close to arresting him. But he always maintained his innocence. When Rennar asked him about his involvement in Amy's abduction and murder, Runkle said, I know I'm their top suspect, but I answered the FBI's questions. I took their lie detector test, and they haven't done anything to me.

I was always at school. When would I have had time to kill her? What history do I have of inappropriate behavior with kids? I was around kids all day. Bad for the Mahaljeviks, but good for Runkle. He has remained free and has been managing a restaurant in Florida ever since. In the past decade, there have been some developments in the active investigation of Amy's abduction and murder. In 2013, retired investigator Phil Torsney returned to handle the case originally assigned to him after Amy's murder. Torsney is credited for aiding in the capture of Wattie Bulger, a longtime member of the FBI's top ten most wanted.

In March of 2014, the FBI offered a reward as much as $27,000. to anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of Amy's killer. Two years later, investigators made public the discovery of a blanket and curtain located 100 yards from Amy's body. They had hairs on them, similar to her dog's fur. The blanket and curtain were supposedly used to conceal Amy's body before she was left in that field. The investigators in 2018 started following a potential link between Amy's murder and a man named Joseph Newton Chandler III, a formerly unidentified identity thief who committed suicide in East Lake, Ohio, in July of 2002.

Then most recently in 2019, authorities said that all suspects on their list have been extensively investigated, but no one seems to be the most likely culprit. So, if the unknown man will ever be identified, he's not part of the list of suspects. Torzny believes the killer is still alive. Mark Mahaljevic thinks so too, and he believes someone out there knows something. Mark said, It's too big of a secret not to have told somebody.

People don't keep secrets like that without telling someone. He looks forward to the day when he receives a call, telling him his daughter's killer is finally found and arrested. Mark ended it with this. There will be a lot of tears of sadness and joy shed, at that moment? I can guarantee you that. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown.

Tune in next week for another one filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because who knows? Maybe your town will be next.