The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali, and it will just be me this week. Eli got sick this week, so he is deep in recovery and maybe still a little contagious, so we didn't want to get all snuggly up in the booth together. So he is resting, recovering, but starting to feel better. So he should be back next week to join me. But I wanted to go ahead and get into this week's case for you. This week we are on episode 108, and we are on a cold case.
So just as a bit of a content warning at the top, this case does involve mentions of sexual assault. Today, we are talking about the cold case of Patricia Shea, and this takes place in July of 1982 in New York City. But first, a little bit about Patricia. Patricia, who also goes by Pat, was 40 years old in 1982. She was a multi-generational New Yorker, specifically Rockaway Queens. Pat lived by herself in Rockaway Beach and worked for a doctor in the neighborhood as a physician's assistant.
She had made a career out of caring for people. For the last 20 years, she had worked in the medical field and even volunteered her time for the volunteer ambulance squad. Pat was a cornerstone not only in her neighborhood but for her family as well. Her family described her as, quote, the sweetest person you'll ever meet, end quote. She was known for her smile and her willingness to help others. A quote I read in the newspaper says, quote, she truly cared about Rockaway Beach and her community.
She took care of people all the time, just because they needed someone and she was happy to help them. It's likely that kindness and caring put her into harm's way with the person who hurt her. Which brings us to our timeline of events. On Sunday, July 25th, 1982, Pat had spent the weekend out of the city in upstate New York. She had gone out of town with a friend of hers. While the friend was a guy, there wasn't anything romantic going on between them.
The two of them had just driven together to go to a high school reunion upstate. They arrived back in New York City at her apartment around 1030 to 11 p.m. at night. Now, two versions of events are reported here of what happens next. Overwhelmingly I read that her friend dropped her off at the side entrance of the building. Once inside her apartment, Pat got a call from an elderly neighbor who lived across the street, Agnes or Aggie. Pat was someone Aggie trusted to help her.
Pat would often help her neighbor Aggie as she had dementia and had had a stroke. Pat would have left for Aggie's at around 1115 p.m. The other versions of events that I saw reported as well is that Pat had told the friend in the car that before she even unpacked her suitcase, she was going to go check on Aggie and change her bandages. She asked her friend to take her luggage up to her apartment and she went to go check on Aggie across the street.
Candidly, I don't know which versions of events happen. Normally I can kind of figure out where the truth lies, but they're two similar but very distinct things. Ultimately, what we do get out of this is that Pat heads across the street to help out her elderly neighbor Aggie at around 1115 p.m. The next day on Monday, July 26th, when Pat doesn't show up for work the next day, it's noticed very quickly. She was reliable and never just didn't show up to her job.
The doctor's office immediately calls her family and instantly the family is worried about her and they call police. It's reported that around 6 p.m. that evening, someone in Prospect Park in Brooklyn finds Pat's body in the bushes. Little effort was made to hide her body. She was found just off of Center Drive in the park, about 10 feet from the Bridal Trail, which is a horseback riding trail. If you're familiar with Prospect Park, her body was found near the Quaker Cemetery.
Pat was still fully clothed, wearing her white slacks and a yellow tank top. She had been hog-tied from her feet to her neck. Her lower body had been placed in a brown cloth sack, like a laundry bag. The bag had been tied to her with rope. Pat had been strangled with a cord consistent to the one that was wrapped around her body. Next to Pat was a man's shirt. Police initially suspect that she had been dead for around two days and that her body had been dragged to the spot where she was found.
Pat's body didn't have any ID on her, but because her family had raised the alarm so quickly, the police are able to put two and two together and they're able to notify the family that night that they had found her. The next day, July 27th, police get to work retracing Pat's steps. The friend who dropped her off at her apartment, who she had been with all weekend, has a strong alibi and police never consider him a suspect as far as I can tell.
Police do eventually track down Aggie, the elderly neighbor that Pat went to help. Police had a hard time asking questions due to her dementia, but eventually Aggie will say quote, the blonde man hurt Pat, the blonde man hurt Pat, end quote. Police will say that Pat was not sexually assaulted and that it was possible that due to the way that she had been tied, that she could have strangled herself trying to get free from the ropes.
On Wednesday, July 28th, Pat was found on Monday, police hit the streets to ask if anyone knew or saw anything. They're armed not only with Pat's picture, but with pictures of three other women as well. There had been a string of strangulations in New York City and police were wondering if they were all connected. Police focused their attention in areas where sex work was known to go on.
While Pat was not a sex worker herself, other victims either were or had last been seen in areas known for sex work. The first woman is Cheryl Guida. She was 22 years old and was a sex worker and someone struggling with a heroin addiction. She was found nude off of Neptune Avenue in Coney Island in March of 1982. So this would have been four months before Pat's murder. She had been strangled with a pair of pantyhose or a man's dress socks. Both had been reported.
The case appears to still be unsolved. Rita Nixon was 21 years old. She lived in Portsmouth, Virginia, but she was visiting New York as a tourist and to see her friend. Her body had been found in Lower Manhattan near a schoolyard on July 15, 1982, just a few days before Pat. She had been strangled, wrapped in a blanket, and bound with electrical wire. Rita was not a sex worker, but she was last seen in an area known for sex work.
Years later, two members of the Ghost Shadows gang will be convicted of her murder. The third woman is Glenda DeLeon. She was 32 years old and from New Jersey. She was also a sex worker, and her body was found July 19 under the Manhattan Bridge at Water Street. Her clothing had been ripped, and her neck showed evidence of strangulation. She was found only a block away from where Rita was found. And this case appears to still be unsolved.
While police doubt that they're connected, they want to make sure that they look into this as the son of Sam murders had only happened five years before. But Deputy Chief Robert Colangelo says, quote, I personally don't see any evidence that we have a madman on our hands, end quote. However, just a little over a week after Pat's murder, another woman in New York had been strangled.
A woman was found around 7.50 a.m. off Pier 69, or the American Veterans Memorial Pier, in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge section. Her hands had been tied behind her back, and police believe that she had been sexually assaulted. Police think that she had been dead for two or three days when she was found. She was nude, but had on a pair of gold hoop earrings. She was believed to be 18 to 25 years old and 5'6 and about 123 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Police run her fingerprints, but don't come up with any matches, so she had never been arrested in the area. And as far as I can tell, police have never been able to identify her, and her case remains unsolved. Police will continue, even after this woman is found off of the pier, to downplay the connection over the coming days, not wanting to cause a son of Sam fear in the city.
The things that do connect the five victims is that they are all women, they are all white, and they were all strangled. All were attractive and single. What kind of sets the cases apart? Four women were young, but one was in her 40s, the 40-year-old woman being Pat. At least two were believed to have been sex workers. Four were strangled with cord or nylon, but one was strangled by hand and cord. Two victims were sexually assaulted, while the others were not.
Three women were found fully clothed, and two were nude. Again, Deputy Chief Robert Colangelo says, quote, there is not one single common thread of evidence found on all five bodies, end quote. Detective Steve Kelly will also say, quote, there is no special task force, but we are sharing all our homework, end quote. But there isn't much to share. All of the leads that the 24 detectives assigned to the cases are leading to dead ends.
Police are already talking in private that the cases will take a long time to solve, if they're ever solved. The next update on Pat's case comes in February of 1984, about a year and a half after her murder. Still, the only witness in Pat's case that police have been able to find is Aggie. But when they try to question her about Pat, she begins to shake and cry uncontrollably. Considering how old and frail she is, police don't push her, as they don't want to upset her.
Police are baffled by the case. They don't know how Pat could have been kidnapped from the hallway of a large co-op apartment in Rockaway without anybody witnessing the incident or hearing her cries for help. The trail always ends at Aggie's. The next update, in 2015, it's been 33 years since Pat's murder. Detective William Simon of the Cold Case Homicide Squad announced that he was reopening Pat's case.
He says that he has been able to rule out her murder being connected to the other murders that happened within weeks of hers. Detective Simon says, quote, we have a couple of people of interest and I'm eager to move forward with the case, but we want to put it out there because there is no bad media, end quote. Police also say that they believe whatever happened to Pat likely happened at Aggie's apartment.
In July of 2021, a journalist from The Wave, a local Rockaway Beach publication, wrote a deep dive article about Pat's murder. As of 2021, the family is offering a $2,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of her killer. Her nephew, Kevin Shea, who was only 15 years old when Pat was murdered, says, quote, it's been 40 years and still no conviction or indictment. She was so kind and thoughtful and always had the best smile. I just want to finally bring my aunt's murderer to justice.
After all this time, we are hoping that someone with a conscience will remember something, anything, a discussion they heard over the years, something they saw, end quote. After the article is ran in July of 2021, just a few days later, Carrie Martha showed up to her office and waiting on her desk was an unusual looking envelope addressed to her. It was an anonymous letter printed on old computer paper.
It said, quote, hi Carrie, please forward this info to Detective William Simon of Cold Case Squad. Pat Shea was killed by NYPD and then the name is redacted. He lived on, the address has been redacted, and had an NYPD car at 100 Precinct. They were having an affair and she threatened to tell his wife if he didn't leave her, you know the rest, end quote. The letter was sent from New York and was postmarked August 2nd of 2021.
Police are able to talk to the former NYPD officer that was named in the letter as he was still alive. Police said that they were able to determine that there was no connection between Pat and the officer or his family, except that they had lived in the same area in 1982. Police say that the officer didn't even remember Pat's case. As of 2021, police are pursuing new forensic testing and feel confident that an arrest will eventually be made. But they're at a disadvantage.
Pat's clothes that she was found murdered in were ruined by a flood from Superstorm Sandy. Police also say that they have a person of interest in the case. Police didn't give information but Pat's nephew posted on the family's Facebook page that was created to raise awareness for Pat says this about the person of interest. He was there at the time of the murder, admitted it during an interview with police in 1982.
He claimed to have spent 14 minutes knocking at the door of the person who lived across the hall from Aggie. The person of interest claimed to have seen a woman with a laundry bag in the building and the lower half of Pat's body did have that bag wrapped around it that was described like a laundry bag. The person of interest was seen in the hallway about the same time that Pat was going to check on Agnes and he had blonde hair in 1982. He has been used as a police informant for some time.
But that is all we know about the murder of Pat Shea. So if you know anything about the murder of Pat Shea in July of 1982, please call the current lead detective Anna Marie Berngozy at 212-239-2256 or contact William Simon at 718-330-4125. So that is the case of Pat Shea.
When I first started reading about this case, kind of what surprised me about it or the thing that kind of kept me scratching my head was this connection with other murders that had happened in the area and just kind of learning about New York in 1982. It's very different than, you know, New York today. It's always moving and changing.
From what I was reading at the time in 1982, strangulation was so rare in New York City specifically that when they would release yearly data that had all the causes of homicide from that year, strangling didn't even make the list. It was kind of grouped in with others. Like it was that statistically kind of insignificant compared to the rest of the crime happening in New York City at the time. So for so many women to come up strangled in such a short amount of time, it is very suspicious.
Outside of Pat's case, I mentioned four other cases of women who were found strangled. But what I didn't mention were two other cases that also happened during this time. The reason I didn't mention them is because they have been solved and at that time police were able to kind of rule them out as being connected. One happened in Yonkers, New York, and then the other happened in Long Island, I believe.
So because it wasn't in Manhattan or Brooklyn, that's kind of where these bodies were popping up. Police kind of excluded those at the time in 1982 from the five strangulation cases. But it really starts to gain traction that these are connected even though police never confirm it. The media even starts calling the person perceived of doing all these crimes Jack the Strangler. Like they're starting to give them a nickname.
So that was kind of interesting to read, you know, as the case progressed and more women turned up, how quickly like the newspaper like kind of the fear, the son of Sam fear that was like still in the city like that felt palpable to me even all these years later researching that everyone seemed to be on the lookout for a serial killer.
Police have said that Pat's murder is not connected with the other murders that I mentioned those four other ones kind of specifically but I do think there is something to be said and I just want to take a minute to talk about those four others but one of them was solved so it's really comes down to three. Two of them being sex workers and then the Jane Doe that was found off of the pier that I don't believe was ever identified. I couldn't find any evidence that she had been.
So those three women though, it's really sad to me to think about them just not getting a lot of coverage. It seems like their cases were really only covered by mainstream media because of the frequency in which it was happening that people thought a serial killer might be lurking around the corner and then Rita that's the other woman her case was solved years later. She was found near the schoolyard.
You know she was last seen in an area known for sex work and two were known sex workers so I think Pat just because of the timing got tied into it and I tried to research this. I'm not sure in 1982 if Rockaway Beach or Rockaway area like if there was any known sex work I'm sure there was happening somewhere there but I don't know if it was specifically where Pat was last seen and going over to Aggie's apartment. I don't know if that area was known for anything like that or anything nefarious.
I couldn't find details about that but it does feel possible to me that those other three women could be connected. It wouldn't surprise me if there was more you know more cases maybe just outside of New York that could be connected. Some of the questions I have one of the first things you know if I could just sit down and talk with police and get everything you know straight from the horse's mouth so to say. I would want to know when she's dropped off what really happened.
Did she tell the friend that she was going over there and ask him to take her luggage up or did Aggie call her and the reason I kind of go around and around to me it feels like if somebody if Aggie called her and asked her to come over I wonder what Aggie said to her to get her to come over and is there any way that Aggie was being like coached and kind of forced by someone else to make that phone call to kind of lure her over.
Where on the flip side if she that was her plan from the beginning you know was she just simply in the wrong place wrong time.
Police do seem to have this person of interest that was in the building knocking on the door across the hall from Aggie the man had blonde hair so could it have just been she crossed paths with the wrong person and that's all it is or is there a chance that she was kind of lured over through her compassion you know she was so caring she took care of people like she was helping her elderly neighbor out you know just to make sure that she was always cared for.
And then the letter in 2021 is very interesting to me it's definitely a weird development and I know I mentioned it when I was going over the timeline but it is printed on old printer paper like not quite that printer paper where you had to like rip off the sides because it had those like holes in it.
Hopefully you all know what I'm talking about but it is like an older computer printer to me that's a huge clue of just like who wrote this because frankly I kind of want to know who wrote the letter.
They went to such great lengths to be anonymous with you know the printer paper and no return address you know all of that stuff but the printer paper specifically like the old printer thing it really gets to me because it's like that's a clue whoever has that printer that old of a printer in their house that works that can actively print things I would just I would just want to know why they did this if it if it truly is a hoax and if it's not
how do you know what you know like let's get into it so that's something I would want to know from police just like did they find how deeply did they look into that letter did they find out who wrote it did they just talk to that officer once and then take him at his word and move on like how how deeply did they go down that rabbit hole.
That's just what I would want to know but the other thing I just kind of wanted to mention and it kind of goes in with like you know my future hopes for this case police do feel pretty confident that they'll have an arrest in this case eventually it does sound like maybe they have been able to get some DNA from evidence but how tragic like that's another tragedy of a natural disaster like super storm sandy right like people die in these you know
there's great loss of life of property people's homes you know places they work like cherished parks can be destroyed but it's just like a tragedy or a casualty of natural disasters that I never thought about before it's like well if an evidence place gets flooded or the tornado hits it like that can like really be devastating to cases to getting justice to all of that and it's just something I never considered with natural disasters but it's
scary like that's scary to think that like a loved one of yours you could have all this great evidence but then like a flood can ruin it and then you don't get you won't get the justice or the answers you're looking for and that's that's heartbreaking but my hope is that police either were able to get evidence before super storm sandy or they still have some things that they can test and that pats family is able to get the justice and the
answers they want her nephew has been advocating for her been pursuing justice for her and you know when somebody is that passionate about helping their family you want you want them to get that answer and so I hope that by bringing this case to the podcast and you all listening to it and sharing it in your communities that somebody who knows something heard something saw something is able to come forward and get those answers that pats family
deserves but that like pat deserves somebody deserves to answer for what they did to such a beautiful community member like they really took a good person from a lot of people and they need to answer again if you know anything about the murder of pat shay in july of 1982 please call the currently detective anna marie burn gosie at two and two two three nine two two five six or detective william simon at seven one eight three three zero four one
two five we will have pictures of pat up on our instagram as well as pictures of the letter so and the envelope with the weird printer paper i kept going on and on about so we will have those on our instagram at cold and missing you can find us we'll pop right up please follow us if you're not we share active missing person cases happening all over the country and the world and updates on cases maybe we've already covered but also if we ever are sick
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that's all i have thank you for listening to cold and missing i'm your host ali have a good week and stay safe y'all