The Deck - Susan "Su" Taraskiewicz (8 of Spades, Massachusetts)

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Our card this week is Susan "Su" Taraskiewicz, the 8 of Spades from Massachusetts.Twenty-seven-year-old Susan, better known as Su, was the kind of woman most people would describe as a breath of fresh air or a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. But late one night in 1992, Su’s brightness was suddenly and brutally put out. For the past three decades, law enforcement has spent countless hours unraveling the tangled web of mysteries and dark secrets that laid behind Su’s warm smile.If you know anything about Su’s murder in 1992, or if you know the location of her necklace with a Snoopy charm and crucifix, please call the Massachusetts State Police Suffolk County Detectives at 617-727-8817. There is a $250,000 reward for information.To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org. Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllc The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFFollow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Susan Tarasco-Witz, the eight of spades from Massachusetts. Twenty-seven-year-old Susan, better known as Sue, was the kind of woman most people would describe as a breath of fresh air or a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. But late one night in 1992, Sue's brightness was suddenly and brutally put out. For the past three decades, law enforcement has spent countless hours unraveling the tangled web of mysteries and dark secrets laid behind her murder. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. If you've been a bride before, you may know the feeling of going to get your wedding dress fitted, and the memories made with that special family member or friend that you've made

to Agalong. For me, that was my mom, and for Debbie Tarascoitz, that was supposed to be her younger sister, Sue. But Monday, September 14, 1992 didn't go at all as planned. That morning, Debbie sat at her parents' home in August, Massachusetts, waiting for Sue, who was supposed to be off work and arriving any minute now. But Debbie's excitement was interrupted by the home phone ringing. She picked it up, probably expecting to hear Sue's voice, letting her know she was running

behind, but instead it was a man claiming to be Sue's supervisor at the Boston Logan International Airport where Sue was employed as a ramped supervisor for Northwest Airlines. To Debbie's surprise, the supervisor asked if Sue was there, at her parent's house where she lived. Which was a confusing question, I'm sure, because Sue worked the graveyard shift at the airport, like that 11pm to 7am, so her shift was supposed to be over, and she was supposed to be getting home any minute now. Debbie said no, but I expect her and she get all excited, she's coming with me, you know. getting home any minute now.

That was Sue and Debbie's mom Marlene, recounting Debbie's conversation from that day. The call ended, but a few seconds later, the supervisor called back and told Debbie to have her parents report Sue missing. He said that Sue had entirely missed her shift, and in fact, no one had seen her since a few hours into her shift before that one. Confused and panic, Debbie hung up and phoned her mom Marlene who was at work. As Debbie relayed all the information to her Marlene's stomach drop, because she too hadn't seen Sue in a few days, not since Saturday.

And before now, I mean, she hadn't really thought much about it, because even though she and Sue lived in the same house, Sue worked weird hours, so it wasn't unheard of for them to kind of miss one another for a couple of days at a time. But this, this was all wrong. Sue had worked at the airport for five years, and she had just been promoted to Supervisor. It would be completely out of character for her to skip out on a shift, especially now that she had more responsibility. So Marlene had no hesitation about following the supervisor's advice.

I went in and a very nice female police officer asked me what she could do for me and I said, I'm here to report my daughter missing. With that, the phone rang. She excused herself. She went over an ounce of the phone. Unbeknownst to Marlene, that call wasn't just an interruption. It was extremely relevant to the very report she was trying to file.

You see what that female officer officer on the other end was told was that officers were securing a horrific crime scene at an auto body shop just outside the Boston Logan Airport. Apparently, an employee at a neighboring business was just getting to work when he saw a Toyota Tercelle sitting in front of the auto body shop's garage door. And he noticed that there was this dark liquid dripping from the back of the car.

He approached the vehicle to get a better look, and that's when it hit him. That liquid was blood seeping through the trunk. Now, right as this employee was making this discovery, a local off-duty police officer was swinging by the shop, so the guy flagged the cop over to the car. The officer had to have known nothing good was going to be in that trunk, but I don't

know if he could have fully prepared himself for what he saw when he opened it, because inside was the fully clothed but mutilated body of a young woman. It looked like this poor woman had been beaten severely around the head, and based on all the blood, they suspected that she had also been stabbed. Officers who came to process the scene found that the woman's purse was still in the cab of the car, along with her ID and other personal items, which made it easy to identify her as 27-year-old Susan Tarascoids. She came back, and she said, Mrs. Tarascoids, we have to go into the chief's office. They found your daughter.

The chief relayed to Marlene the details of how Sue was found, and at first, Marlene was in denial. I said, oh, I don't think so. I said, but I better identify her. I don't think so. I said, but I better identify her. I don't think you have the right person. He said, yeah, we do. But I just couldn't believe that somebody had murdered her, I guess. Marlene didn't end up ideing the body, but there was no mistake.

It was Sue in that trunk. Along with being in her own car and having her ID on her, a police trooper who knew Sue from the airport confirmed it was her. Even the placement of her car at that auto body shop was somewhere that Sue was familiar with. Apparently she frequented a restaurant next door and would use that auto body shop as a parking line. Though it's worth noting that her car was parked in a different spot than she would normally use

when she drove herself. But even though she used that parking lot when she would go to a nearby restaurant, it's worth noting that Sue didn't park at that auto shop for work. She used the lot at the airport like everyone else. So investigators knew that she was likely intercepted either at work or somewhere else and

then dumped there. Authorities checked with the owners of the shop to see if they had any surveillance cameras, and of course they didn't. However, there was an establishment across the street that did, and they handed over the footage to police. But what that footage showed, no one but detectives, no. Even 30 plus years later, Lieutenant Murphy, who we spoke with, was still tight-lipped about it to our reporting team.

So I don't know if it showed what time Su's car got to the shop, or if anything of evidentiary value could actually be seen on it. But video surveillance or not, there was other stuff of value in and around the car. Though there was no blood or any evidence of a struggle inside of the car. But there was significant blood evidence outside the car, specifically on the exterior passenger side, which suggested that the majority of the attack happened there outside her car. But not necessarily in the spot where the car was currently parked. Because aside from the blood on the car itself and what had been dripping from the trunk, the rest of the scene was pretty clean.

So this suggested to them that Sue had been killed elsewhere. Because again, it was clear from the moment they saw her in that trunk that Sue had suffered a long and violent death, and eventually an autopsy would tell them just how violent. She had been stabbed multiple times in the back and had suffered blunt force trauma to her neck and head. The killer used such brute force that her skull was even fractured in multiple places. Based on the nature of her injuries, officials concluded that Sue was likely tortured

for hours, leading up to her death. Now, the Emmy found no evidence of sexual assault, and considering the fact that Sue's belongings were still in the car, robbery was out too. This attack seemed personal. So who would want to harm her in such a brutal way and really who was with her before she died? Police determined that the last place she was seen alive was at work. Her girl worker said that she had shown up to work for her shift just two days ago,

which would have been Saturday at 11 p.m. just like normal. And then a couple of hours into her shift, it would have been like one or 130 in the morning, she offered to go pick up sandwiches for herself and the team at this local restaurant that was still open. So they say she took orders, walked away, and then just never came back. One of her crew members told police that when she didn't return, he just assumed that she'd gotten held up

with something or maybe couldn't come back for some reason. So he took her time card and clocked her back in, presumably to cover for her, because she still had more than half of her shift left. And then when she didn't show up to her next shift, the following night, her crew clocked her in again, so she wouldn't lose hours. Detective Lieutenant Bob Murphy, with the Massachusetts State Police, told our reporter that investigators looked into the guy who clocked her out and then back in, thinking maybe he was doing it

maliciously, hoping no one would notice that she was missing. But they quickly determined that that wasn't the case. However, it was immediately clear that not everyone at the airport had such warm and fuzzy feelings for Sue. You see, investigators learned that Sue was one of the first women to be hired in this capacity with Northwest at the airport, and the glass ceiling was a very real barrier Sue had to fight to break. And I do mean fight.

In the months leading up to her murder, Sue actually filed a complaint with her union for being wrongfully passed over for a promotion due to her gender. Her claims were founded, so much so that this complaint actually led to her being rightfully awarded the supervisor promotion shortly after. Which I'm sure you can imagine didn't go over well with the people who didn't want her to have the gig in the first place. She'd come home sometimes and you could see she was nervous, I'd say to what's a man to sue.

And she said, well, I'm getting harassed at work. So we said, why? She said because I guess I'm the first female supervisor, and they don't want me. Now they were doing more than just telling Sue they didn't want her. She had filed a second complaint after her car had been vandalized in the parking lot at work. And the fighting continued because if you think filing harassment complaints makes things better or easier, you weren't a woman harassed in a male-dominated field in the 90s.

Sue was doing the hard thing, not just for herself, but for every woman that would come after her. And that made some of the men she worked with hate her even more. You know, they looked very hard at the Northwest crew because, you know, she had, like I said, a lot of negative interaction with them. She was not afraid to go to management when she was mistreated or, you know, the things that she saw. And that immediately got her, you know, a negative reputation there as someone who would go to management.

Those things that she saw, maybe they weren't limited to flagrant sexism and harassment. Because investigators soon learned that there was something else, something very illegal happening there at the Boston Logan Airport. And maybe that had something to do with Sue's murder. There was a very elaborate credit card ring that was operating out of Logan that had been going on for a long period of time. Credit cards were coming in the mail. Back then, in 1992, a credit card would come good to go, basically. You know, today there's all these security measures in place. You have to activate the card, et cetera.

None of those were in place back in 1992. So when a credit card would come in the mail, it was ready to go. The people at Northwest, the baggage handlers, they could recognize, based on the weight of the cargo and the packaging that credit cards were in there. And in the beginning, they were stealing credit cards, basically for personal use.

And then eventually, somebody came up with an idea that this could be much bigger. And organized crime became involved. And these cards were now being fenced to organized crime figures. They were making licenses to match the cards, and they were putting crews together to go to various casinos at the time, and they were doing cash advances. And they were making serious money, you know, $60,000, $70,000 in a weekend.

At this point, in August of 1992, which is a month before her murder. It became common knowledge that the federal government was investigating the credit card ring, those operating out of Logan. Grand jury subpoenas had gone out, termination noticed, and it's gone out. They knew this was real, and this was serious, and the people were going to go to jail, and the people were going to get fired. Investigators were pretty certain Sue wasn't involved in the illegal activity. But they wondered if maybe she was an informant or something, and her crew or someone with inorganized crime found out.

But both the feds and Marlene were adamant that Sue wasn't an informant for them on this case. In fact, Marlene said, as far as Sheenow Sue didn't even know about the scheme at all. Certainly never mentioned it to her. So investigators were hitting a dead end at her work. But by no means were they writing off her workplace, because getting murdered in the middle of your shift when you go for a sandwich run, shady as hell. But investigators had to explore all options, like checking out X's.

I mean, that's solving a murder 101, right? Alan Wonders, who went by Al, was Sue's fairly serious long-time boyfriend, with whom she had just broken things off with a few months prior. Lieutenant Murphy said that there was nothing particularly interesting about Al, or anything that would point to him as a prime suspect,

so it seemed like investigators at the time just wanted to check him off their list. But when they approached Al to ask him some questions, he did something unexpected. He refused to cooperate and demanded a lawyer. That's obviously a big red flag for law enforcement when you know you're going to knock on someone's door and they say no I'm talking to my lawyer. Now you all know how I feel about this. These are literally some of the most basic rights in the U.S. The right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

But unfortunately, exercising those rights right off the bat before giving investigators a chance to ask some of the more basic questions, doesn't usually bowed well for you. Like, it doesn't make them think you did something necessarily, but if they weren't suspicious of you and just had some general questions, and then that's the response they get, well, you can bet that they're leaving with a lot more questions than they had when they first showed up at your door. And leaving Al's investigators felt even more confident pushing his name to the top of their persons of interest list. But he wasn't the only one there.

Soon enough, investigators' attention was drawn to a mystery man who had supposedly called Sue the day she disappeared. She got a call at home. Before she left the house that night, she was on the phone with a friend from the church who was in Houston. While she was speaking to him, she got a call on the call waiting line. She switched over and she was talking to someone

for a minute or two and when she came back to this other person, she was agitated. And he said, what's the matter? You know, what's wrong? And she said nothing, nothing. He's just being difficult. And the person thought she might have been talking about Al Wanderer's, who was her boyfriend, who she had broken up

with, and she said, no, no, it's just, and she never revealed who she was talking to, other than the fact that she was, she had some sort of a difficult conversation with somebody. Unfortunately, police weren't able to trace that call. Which, can we just pause for a moment? If you listen to the deck investigate,

you know that police were able to get phone records in Darling Hulse's case in 1985. So why couldn't they figure out who's calling now in 1992? I mean, maybe you could chalk it up to the differences of jurisdictions, maybe they're available technology, maybe it's how long the call lasted, I don't know. But I think it really says something that even Lieutenant Murphy seemed baffled when he was talking about it.

Now that we don't have a trace on that, whatever reasons I can't really explain, but we don't have who actually made that call. So without tracing the call, investigators would never figure out with a hundred percent certainty who it was, though they did have their suspicions. They thought that maybe it was a man by the name of Frank Pizzo. He worked with her, he was, he socialized with her, he had strong feelings for her.

And there was a strange situation that the weekend that she was murdered. She was supposed to go to a wedding with him, and then she didn't go. And he was upset about that. Now unlike Al, Frank was cooperative with the investigation. Lieutenant Murphy said he was almost overly cooperative. He let police do a search of vehicles and his house where he lived with his parents, and they didn't find anything damning. Frank also sat through multiple interviews, answering detectives' questions, and his parents even alibied him. They said he was at home

when Sue went missing. Also, Frank didn't have any kind of alarming criminal record, so he wasn't the most promising suspect. Now eventually Frank did invoke his right to remain silent, but at that point he'd already mostly fallen off the suspect list entirely. Now I want to mention that the call that Frank allegedly made was rumored to have only been one of two mysterious calls that Sue received the night she went missing. There was information that she may have gotten a call in the break room that night while she was at Terminal E. Lieutenant Murphy wouldn't say who provided that information. Like if it was one person or multiple people,

and he reiterated that he can't confirm whether or not that call actually happened. But many of those close to Sue, as well as law enforcement, began theorizing that, perhaps, if that call did happen, maybe it was a way to lure Sue out of the airport. Maybe Sue planned to meet the caller somewhere, and the sandwich run was all a ruse. But that was all a theory, and a loose one at that, since they had no confirmation that the second phone call actually even happened. But when I heard this, my gears started turning.

I mean, what if it was one step further? What if she didn't even leave work on her own accord? What if she was forcefully taken by one of her crew members, who we already know don't exactly love her? But Lieutenant Murphy says he doesn't buy that theory. He says there's no evidence of her being taken away with force. Because a lot of people heard her saying that she was going to do the sandwich run. A lot of people put their orders in and she was seen walking to her car.

And according to Inside Edition, when her body was found she even had the cash on her person to pay for said sandwiches. There were just more questions than answers. And the investigation into Sue's death was losing steam. Before anyone knew it, the one-year anniversary had come and gone without any arrests, and Sue's family was frustrated. In a year, they felt no more had changed in the investigation than in Sue's room, which they had kept exactly

as it had been on the day she left for the final time. Now, police had gone through that room in the early days of their investigation and collected everything that they needed. So Marlene wasn't keeping the room as is for the cases sake. It was more sentimental. But something about the one year mark made her want change.

For something to feel different, even if it was just Su's room, so she started doing some organizing and putting things away. And that's when she found it. Something police had missed, something she never even knew her daughter had. A diary. Marlene opened it and started to read and what she found left her in shock and completely disturbed. But when I first read it it was awful. I think that she was going through that and got up every day to go to that job.

She knew her daughter had been having some trouble with a few guys at work, but when she read the diary, Marlene realized that she hadn't even known the half of what Sue had been going through. Sue's diary described multiple instances of severe harassment from her male co-workers. Some of these instances included things like obscene calling, graffiti, targeted at her in the men's restroom, and airplane cargo holds. And there were even threatening phone calls that she said she endured at work and at home. Sue wrote about reporting this to her supervisor's numerous times, but nothing had ever been

done to stop the harassment. In fact, her supervisors told her to just let it go and sit back and ignore it. According to a Boston Globe article, she felt that the airline retaliated to her complaints by assigning her to a crew that cleaned airplane toilets. The diary recounted specific instances, such as a drawn coffin with Sue's name on it that was scribbled on the inside of her locker. Another time completely unprovoked Sue's coworker stormed into the break room and smashed Su's brand new radio.

Su's boyfriend who worked there at the time talked with the guy about it, and when Su confronted the man later, he allegedly said, quote, �What's the matter? Your little punk boyfriend going to beat me up? He's lucky I didn't kill him.� After reading Su's diary, Marlene was livid, and rightfully so. She handed the journal over to police, and in March of 1994, she and her husband filed a complaint against Northwest Airlines with the Massachusetts Commission

against discrimination, who then opened an investigation. The airline denied that Sue had made any official complaint in the last six months of her employment, which was apparently the period of time that they could be held responsible for. They said that she had filed a complaint in 1989 about sexually demeaning remarks from two of her male co-workers,

named Joseph Nuzzo and Robert Brooks, and in response, the airline fired them. But they both filed appeals with their union and ended up getting rehired under a sort of last chance probationary agreement. By 1992, when Sue was murdered, Robert had transferred out and was working at another airport, but Joseph was still at Boston Logan.

That is, until he eventually was fired for threatening other co-workers. Several of Sue's former co-workers came forward, corroborating the stories in her diary, as well as adding their own. Someone had even witnessed Sue getting shoved to the ground by another man that they worked with. But even with all this, Northwest continued to deny that they ignored the harassment, and they insisted that they acted promptly whenever a formal complaint was made. They said that they even assigned someone to go through the bathrooms every day and remove any graffiti that was up, which is really getting to the root of the problem there, Northwest.

The airline went back and forth with the Massachusetts Commission against discrimination for several years. But by the end of the investigation, MCAD found that Northwest was in the wrong and was subject to multiple fines and other penalties, and they set up a reward fund to encourage people with information about Sue's death to come forward. That reward ended up being raised to $250,000 as part of a larger penalty. I really don't have much to say about them other than

they didn't do anything for her, you know. All at once, it felt like investigators were back where they started, but actually in a good way. Because while the MCAD investigation was going on, there was something really interesting that came to light having to do with that credit card scheme that they looked at early on. It might have all been way more intertwined than they originally knew. You see, mid-MCAD investigation, authorities on the credit card fraud case obtained 37 federal and 19 state convictions for the

people from Northwest who were involved. But what was interesting was, three of those men had also been named as some of the worst aggressors in MCAD's investigation. Two of those guys were you guessed it? Joseph Nuzzo and Robert Brooks, the ones fired, then rehired after Sue reported them for making sexually demeaning remarks in 1989. This overlap felt like more than just a weird coincidence. Maybe investigators had been on the right track from the start. Detectives spent more time digging into this.

And finally, in 1996, a federal grand jury was convened to review new information pertaining to Sue's case. Now all the details regarding what was discussed have never been released. But according to an article from The Boston Globe, Robert Brooks was called to testify twice, regarding when he had spoken to someone they call Mr. X in the days surrounding Sue's murder. Even though Robert didn't work at the airport in September of 92, he still kept in touch with some of his former co-workers, specifically this Mr. X person.

Robert said on the stand that he had only talked to Mr. X one time after Sue's murder. But investigators later found out through phone records that he had had three phone conversations with this Mr. X, including a 22-minute phone call sometime in the middle of the day on September 13th, the day that Sue was murdered. And I have to just bring it up again. I don't know how they have Robert's phone records here, but not Sue's. We're talking about the same time, the same day she was killed. I don't know how that's possible.

I feel like I'm just missing something. But fear not, I literally have my reporting team digging into this deeper, not necessarily for Su's case, but just in general. So if any of our listeners know anything, please help a girl out, send me an email, you would be helping on more cases than you know. Obviously, lying on the stand is a big no-no. So Robert ended up getting charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. And in the first part of his trial, the identity of Mr. X was revealed. If you guessed that Mr. X was Joseph Nuzzo, you'd be correct.

Now after that revelation, the rest of Robert's trial ended up getting delayed a few times because of some evidence disputes. But in the interim, more details about Sue's challenges, while working with Joseph came out. For instance, Joseph had been forced to take a leave of absence without pay after an incident where he had called Sue some very terrible things. And he had retaliated by slashing her tires, keying her car, making anonymous phone calls,

staking out her house and telling people that he would exact revenge. But the thing is, police didn't even think that that would have been Joseph's motive if he had something to do with Sue's murder. Because that forced leave, the comments he made about revenge, that all happened in 1989, three years before Sue was killed. But that didn't mean that Joseph and or Robert were off the hook. Investigators just thought that maybe they had another motive.

You see, Robert also stated during his trial that on at least one occasion, Joseph suspected that Sue had been the one who'd blown the whistle on the credit card scheme. And the more investigators poked around, they found out that Joseph wasn't the only one who thought this. There are people that have come forward and said that we believe that she was the source, the informant. So whether she was a wasn't an informant at the time, you know, that's in dispute. But I will tell you that the perception that people believe

that she was an informant is not in dispute." Robert's trial finally ended up happening in 1998, but before it ended, he decided to plead guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. According to the Bangor Daily News, Robert wasn't required to answer any questions about Sue's case as a part of his plea deal. Joseph was spoken to by authorities about Sue's murder, but he repeatedly denied any involvement. And with that, things fizzled. Until the early 2000s, when Lieutenant Murphy was introduced to the case. When I first got here, there was probably five or six boxes

of files about the case. And we had a new boss. One of his priorities was to look into some of the old cases that we had. At the top of that list was the Susan Terasquit case. So we met on the case regularly. I started taking the files apart. I started reading into it.

It was a very interesting case to me. Somebody, you know, my same age. It was an interesting case where there's multiple theories about what had happened to her. It was definitely one of the most prominent unsolved murders in Massachusetts at the time. So myself and my partner, we started looking into it and we started taking investigative steps.

Lieutenant Murphy's obsession with the case only grew after meeting Marlene. I remember sitting in a room with her and none of us knew anywhere near as much about the case that she had. She knows everything that's been done. She knows names, she knows dates, she knows specifics.

She is herself gone to various penitentiaries in the state to interview inmates. She is not afraid to go into a kind of a dangerous place if she thinks that it's gonna get her some information. And she's just amazing. She is not a woman that is intimidated by anything. There's nothing she's afraid of. When it comes to her daughter's case,

she will do whatever it needs to be done. And I think that Sue had a lot of that in her too. Sue went into employment into a man's world, where most women would be a little bit afraid, intimidated, or whatever the word would be. She wasn't, you know, she stood her ground, she stood up for herself, and no one was going to tell her that she couldn't do something that she wanted to do.

As a part of this renewed effort in the case, investigators decided it was time to release new information to the public that they had never put out there before. So on the 10th anniversary of her death, they published a photo of a necklace that Sue was believed to have been wearing the night she was killed. It was a 16-inch gold chain with several charms on it, including a crucifix and a little snoopy. Police located what they believed to be the class in the trunk of Sue's car, but the necklace itself was nowhere to be found. And this is something so specific to Sue because her mom says she was obsessed with Snoopy.

I mean, to the point that she amassed a wild collection of Snoopy knickknacks. I think I had about 2000 on them. At one point, Sue even had the opportunity to meet Charles Schultz, the creator of Penets and get his autograph. So when Marlene was preparing to lay her daughter to rest, she had an idea of how to give Sue one final Snoopy gift. I thought, what can we give Susan? That would mean the most to her.

I called Charles Schultz and got a secretary and asked if he could draw Snoopy for her plaque in the cemetery. She said she'd have to talk to him. The following day he called and said Mrs. Draskwitz, I met her, seemed like a wonderful girl. What kind of Snoopy would you like? I swear, ever you want to draw. In he-boy, Drew Snoopy holding the flower and sent it to us and that's what's on her

plaque. So that Snoopy charm was something she wore all the time. Was it taken as a souvenir or was it taken as proof of death to show someone else that the right target was hit? When they released this info about the necklace, they really hoped that someone would come forward with it, and maybe finding that unique piece of jewelry would lead them to her killer, but that didn't happen. And sadly, even to this day, that necklace has never been located. So they were left with the same messy puzzle that detectives had back in 1992.

If you were writing a fiction novel, you couldn't write it anywhere. I mean, there was so many things that went on that just clouded the picture so badly. Lieutenant Murphy and the rest of his crew got to work trying to clear up that picture. One of the first people that they revisited was Sue's ex-boyfriend Al, hoping that he might have had a change of heart after all these years. And surprisingly, he had. He agreed to speak with police and offered an explanation for why he initially refused to cooperate.

You know, he got some advice from someone in law enforcement that he was close to and that, you know, he was afraid that, you know, that, you know, we were going to try to basically make this about him. I will tell you that in my timing investigation, he has cooperated. He has told his story from the front the back and he has cooperated fully. Lieutenant Murphy said now that Al was talking, he offered an alibi for the time of Sue's murder. That combined with his newfound cooperation pretty well knocked him off the suspect list.

Another key person of interest that investigators sought out was Joseph Nuzzo. And though he was willing to chat with police, he still adamantly maintained his innocence. Lieutenant Murphy told us that he's spoken with Joseph several times, and each time he denies involvement. As for Robert Brooks, Murphy said that he's never spoken with him directly. But the last time investigators talked with him, he also stuck to his story of non-involvement. Throughout the years, as Lieutenant Murphy has continued investigating Sue's case, he has developed his own theory about what happened to Sue and why. You had this marriage between Northwest, the real bad guys at Northwest, and now you

have them working with the organized crime. Northwest is reporting to organized crime. Organized crime is asking who's talking. Her name gets fed to some very serious, dangerous people, and then you see what happens. What's more, Lieutenant Murphy isn't even sure Sue's murder was premeditated. I think that whoever killed her, I think they were there to intimidate her, to threaten her. The way she's killed, it is no like a labored weapon re-involved here.

I mean, you know, the way she's killed, it's very primitive. And to me, it looks more like a crime of opportunity. I think someone approached her in the dark and had a message. And I think that she was hysterical because she was so paranoid. And I think that she saw a stranger approaching her in the middle of the night. And she was going towards a car. And I think she got hysterical, and I think they put the hands on her, and then they saw her through. That's what I think happened."

I want to note that investigators still have never found where Sue was killed. So if she was attacked right there in the parking lot, there was seemingly no evidence left behind. Whether the specifics of Lieutenant Murphy's theory or spot on or not, he's confident that they're barking up the right tree. But I think we've been able to really narrow the focus on what happened and why. I'm very confident that we know that. I'm very confident that we know we're looking in the right place. We know why she was killed. And, you know, I'd even go so far to say that we know who we haven't proven it yet, obviously, but I can tell you that it is getting there

and it is still worked on. Marlene also shared with us her theory about what happened, and it very closely mirrors what Murphy believes. What I think is it started out with Joe Nuzzo, who was the leader, who people in the co-workers, other co-workers, that involved. But I just feel it definitely is because of the credit card scheme. It's not because of mafia. They might have gone gotten at the end,

but it all is people involved in the credit card scheme. Joe Nassau put her name off there. Probably like, well, you know, she keeps talking so, unless we, but I just feel that that's how it went. Lieutenant Murphy retired last year, but he's still helping the state police with the investigation on a part-time basis, and he thinks they're getting close.

When our reporter asked him if they have any usable DNA and suitcase, this was his response. We have material that we're working with. Every time the technology changes, it's applied, so we're getting closer and closer on that front. So until technology catches up or someone comes forward, Marlene is left waiting as patiently as she can for answers. I've been saying it for the last 30 years.

If you know something about Susan Smirdom, you're met a house small, A trivial you think it is. Please pick up the phone. You can do it anonymously. Call the mass state police. Tell them what you know. We don't know exactly what they have. We don't know what they're looking for,

but you might have what they need. Please, I know back when Susan was first murdered, maybe you were afraid. A lot of those bad people are gone. It's not too late. Clear your conscience. And if you have a daughter, or a grand daughter, I hope every time. You're looking at me. So did you see my husband. Maybe.

Sorry. Maybe you wouldn't want to come forward. It's not too late. Where it is resolved, after years and years. How can you live with something like this? Pick up the phone. Where it is resolved after years and years. How can you live with something like this? Pick up the phone, clear your conscience,

the matter how small you might think it is, or unimportant, give it a try. If you're listening to this episode on the day it was released, that means it's the anniversary of Sue's death. 31 years. That's 31 years Marlene has been waiting for answers. 31 years, Sue's killer has been roaming free. That's far too long. So please, for Marlene, for the rest of Sue's family, if you know anything about Sue's murder in

1992, or if you know the location of her necklace with that Snoopy charm and crucifix, please call the Massachusetts State Police Suffolk County Detectives at 617-727-8817. That $250,000 reward is still on the table, which you could be eligible for. The deck will be off next week, but we will return the following week with a brand new episode. The deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? podcast.com.

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