Episode Transcript- Andre Rand- The Pied Piper of Staten Island

[Amanda] Hey there podcast listeners, I'm Amanda, and you're listening to New York's Dark Side.

[Intro Music]

[Amanda] Welcome back for episode two! Or if you're a first time listener welcome and thanks for tuning in! In the first episode, I brought you the story of Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, which if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I do suggest you go back and check it out because it does play into this story a bit. Today we're going to be diving deeper into the documentary Cropsey and Andre Rand, the ‘Pied Piper of Staten Island’. For this episode, along with the documentary, I used other resources to compile my information and I'll be linking them all in the blog post for this episode for anyone who wants to do some additional digging. I'm going to start with a quick recap of the urban legend of Cropsey and then jump right into the new content so some of this may be a repeat from the first episode… apologies in advance I just want to make sure I catch up anybody who didn't listen to the first episode.

[Amanda] The documentary Cropsey was released in 2009 by Staten Island film makers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio. They grew up with the urban legend of an escaped mental patient who lived in the tunnels beneath Willowbrook State School. Cropsey would come out at night and snatch little children and take them back to the grounds of Willowbrook. Sometimes he had a hook for a hand, sometimes he carried a bloody axe, regardless he was the boogeyman. The film covers the true crime story of Andre Rand, a man who worked for a time at Willowbrook and drifted around Staten Island. In 1987, a 12-year-old girl with Down Syndrome went missing. At the time of her disappearance, Andre Rand lived on the grounds of Willowbrook and had a camp not far from where the missing girl's body would ultimately be found a few weeks later. The film shows newspaper clippings and media footage of missing children in the area from that time frame. The film makers also go over the wooded Greenbelt area of Staten Island and this is where the abandoned Seaview Hospital, which was the nation's largest tuberculosis ward, the Farm Colony, which is an abandoned poor house and sections of the abandoned parts of Willowbrook State School are and how this added to the urban legend of Cropsey. Cropsey really became a generic term for the boogeyman of summer camps on the East Coast in the Hudson River valley.

[Amanda] The film starts out discussing Staten Island, with interviews from residents about how Staten Island was originally a lot of farmland and kind of forgotten. But when the Verrazano Narrows bridge opened in 1964, it became more populated. But the issue then was that it was kind of viewed as a dumping ground due to the Fresh Kills Landfill. It was also a place where mobs like to dump their kills and some other things that made Staten Island just feel like the dumping ground. The documentary also highlights some interviews with residents of Staten Island talking about variations of the urban legend of Cropsey that they grew up with. The filmmakers also discuss the reason why they are filming the documentary, because in 1987 with the disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger, the urban legend of Cropsey really became real to them and all the kids of the Staten Island area in that time frame. Jennifer Schweiger was the daughter of Karen and Kenneth Schweiger. On July 9th 1987, Jennifer told her parents that she was going to go for a walk and she never returned. The community rallied to search for this sweet girl. Donna Cutugno, a local resident of the area, was heavily active in the search and she started a search organization of volunteers called Friends of Jennifer. Donna helped gather the community and they would lead searches of the grounds, tunnels, and buildings of Willowbrook, or as it was known at that time, Staten Island Developmental Center. Donna was interviewed on the documentary and said that when they were searching the grounds, they were finding a lot of people who had previously been patients of Willowbrook that were still living on the grounds. They had just come back. During the initial investigation into Jennifer's disappearance, a couple of witnesses came forward to authorities stating that they had seen Jennifer walking with a middle-aged man who was pushing a green woman's bicycle with a basket on the front. One of the people interviewed on the Cropsey documentary was now retired detective Robert Jensen, who said that when this information came forward, he remembered that he had seen Andre Rand at a ShopRite the week prior, who left ShopRite on a green women's bicycle with a basket on it and he knew that this was Andre Rand because he remembered him from a prior case. So, Rand was taken in for questioning and he ended up being released due to lack of evidence.

[Amanda] So who is Andre Rand? The truth is that not a lot is known about his early life. Andre was born Frank Rostum Rushan. I did find in an article that he was born in Manhattan and that he grew up in the Ithaca, NY area- which is not that far, less than an hour’s drive, from where I grew up and still live. The article also said that Rand served in the Army, but didn't give details of how long and his status at discharge. Andre Rand was known by several different names throughout his life. His father died in 1958, when Rand was 14. His mother was treated at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood, NY, where Rand would visit her with his sister as teenagers. His sister was interviewed in the Cropsey documentary and said that they had a fairly normal life they were never physically or sexually abused, and she really didn't know why he was the way he was. She did mention that Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in structure was very similar to Willowbrook with the same system of tunnels underneath and many of the same features. Rand’s sister would go on to tell the film makers that she thought Rand was manipulating them and this may be true. One thing they really wanted to get out of doing this documentary was interviewing him, and he never gave in to that. Using the name Andre Bruchette, Rand worked at Willowbrook from 1966 to 1968 as a custodian, orderly, and physical therapy aide. Rand did have a significant criminal history prior to Jennifer Schweiger’s disappearance.

[Amanda] On May 5th, 1969, Rand was arrested in the South Bronx for kidnapping and attempted rape of a nine-year-old girl. He allegedly coaxed the girl into his car, drove her to a vacant lot where he was discovered thankfully by a passing police officer after removing both his clothes and the girl's clothes. He was sentenced to four years, but ultimately, he only served 16 months in prison after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of sexual abuse and he won parole in January of 1972. I did, when I was researching, find that there was an article saying that when this event occurred there were witnesses that came forward saying that there was also a female passenger in the car who helped coax the girl in. I don't know if that was actually substantiated, but because I did find it in the research, I just wanted to mention that. After his release, he then changed his name legally to Andre Rand. He had three more arrests by the end of the 70s for minor offenses including burglary. In 1979, he was accused of rape of a 15 and a 19-year-old woman but neither of them ended up pressing charges against him. And when I first read that I wondered about the circumstances behind them not moving forward with charges. And all we can do at this point is speculate, because the only people who know that for sure are the women involved in that decision, but I just want to home in on the fact that to this day there continues to be a lot of shame and guilt around victims of sexual assaults. And it involves having to relive the trauma for the women who are victims, sometimes when women who are victims of sexual assault and men… men are victims of sexual assault too, the people in positions of authority can place the blame back on the victim. And this needs to stop! there's also sometimes fear of being further victimized. Whatever the reason, unfortunately Rand continued to drift around Staten Island. In 1981, Rand reportedly tried to entice a nine-year-old girl into his Volkswagen with a lollipop, which she thankfully refused. He then followed her home and tried to search for her while she hid under a rug. No charges ended up being filed in this event either.

[Amanda] This next event really shocked me when I read about it. In 1983, Andre Rand picked up a group of 11 children from a YMCA on Staten Island. He loaded them into a bus or a van and took them on an adventure without their parents knowing. He fed them a meal of hamburgers from White Castle and then took them to the Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey, where they spent the day watching airplanes and playing. One man who was interviewed in the Cropsey documentary said that he was one of the children on the bus and said they didn't even know that they had been kidnapped until after the fact. None of the children thankfully were harmed and Andre Rand was arrested after returning to the YMCA five hours after taking the children and ultimately would serve ten months in jail for unlawful imprisonment and that's just terrifying. As a parent, you know thankfully my son, he's older now and that comes with its own fears and risks, but I can't imagine being the parent getting a phone call that your child was just picked up on a bus and we have no idea where they are. It's just terrifying and I'm so grateful that none of the children were hurt.

[Amanda] So that leads us back to kind of where we started this story with Andre Rand and the disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger. On August 5th, 1987, a few weeks after Jennifer disappeared, Rand was arrested for her kidnapping, and it's not really made clear what evidence they had found between when he was originally questioned and released and his arrest. In the documentary it said that they had done some further monitoring of his activities in the weeks after Jennifer disappeared. A week after his arrest Jennifer's body would be found. When Rand came out of the courthouse after being charged with the disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger he came out “looking like a madman” according to the media and one thing I really noted at this time, was the newspaper headlines and the way that he was described in the media. “Suspect labeled as strange”… Faking mental illness”… “homeless, toothless man”… “scuzz ball”… I don't really know what to say about that. He did look strange, I'm sure coming out of the courthouse they showed footage of it, he was drooling… he was stumbling around… but the documentary really discusses how this sealed him in people's minds as a killer. People just looked at these images and they could see a killer and it infuriated them; and this would be echoed later in an interview with a witness that would come forward in another case against Rand years later. One other thing that was highlighted in the documentary that I wanted to mention was the circumstances in which Jennifer's body was found. In an interview on the Cropsey documentary, Donna Cutugno stated that a man working with the friends of Jennifer group would insist that they go back and search an area of Willowbrook where he had found a mounded area with some clay balls on the ground. The man was a retired firefighter named George and he had been searching the area with his wife. They ended up being asked to leave by security officers at the Staten Island Developmental Center, which was a new name for Willowbrook. They ended up going back later and they searched the area again and this time they poked into the area with a stick and hit what they thought was a plastic bag. They went to the Friends of Jennifer group and rallied them together and they went back to this area and would carefully dig and unfortunately, they found a hand and a foot and knew that they had found something. And I'm so grateful that they did find Jennifer's body. Unfortunately, it wasn't the circumstances that they wanted to find Jennifer at all, however as we go through this case a little bit deeper and other cases that are connected to Andre Rand, a lot of them are… all of them really… are unsolved. So out of the circumstances that could have happened at least this gave Jennifer's parents some closure that they would be able to put Jennifer to rest. The area where she was found had been searched repeatedly before without finding her and that was a fact that stuck out to some of Andre Rand's acquaintances, who were interviewed in the documentary as well. The area where she was found was 150 yards away from where Rand had been camping and some of his acquaintances would question whether he was framed and whether her body had been moved to that area from somewhere else by the real killer because he was looked at so heavily and he had already been arrested for her disappearance. The charge of murder at this time would be added to the charges against him.

[Amanda] The case against Rand for Jennifer's kidnapping and murder would be the largest criminal court case in Staten Island history. But one thing that really stuck out to me too, was this relied mostly on eyewitness testimony… it was a very circumstantial case. And most experts agree that eyewitness testimony is not reliable. Rand was convicted of the charge of first degree kidnapping but the jurors couldn't agree on the murder charge, so the murder charge ended up being dropped. He was sentenced to 25 years to life and would have been eligible for parole in 2008. After his conviction Rand was looked at for over 30 cases of missing children to see if there was any connection. The focus was then narrowed down to four and included the cases of Alice Periera, Hank Guaffario, Tiahese Jackson, and Holly Ann Hughes. And we're gonna talk now about Holly Anne Hughes. I do want to talk about the other cases and some others that weren't mentioned in the documentary that are unofficially connected to Rand, but Holly Anne’s was the one that was really focused on in the documentary.

[Amanda] So Holly Ann Hughes was born on January 23rd, 1974. On July 15th, 1981, Holly was sent to purchase soap at a nearby deli around 9:30 PM by her mother. She was wearing a beige bathing suit, blue shorts, and beige or brown shoes. She did make it to the Port Richmond deli to purchase the soap but wasn't seen after that. Her parents were in the process of a custody dispute at the time of her disappearance and her father Peter who would be interviewed on the documentary said that he was looked at briefly as a suspect because he and Holly's mother, who was also named Holly, were not on speaking terms at the time of her disappearance. In the documentary there's also discussion of some pretrial testimony that was sent to the film makers by Rand, where a detective testified that Rand had admitted to him that he had given Holly Ann money for soap because she was dirty, however Rand wrote in the margins of this that this never happened and was a fabricated statement. Rand’s car though was reported to be in the area, and I saw a differing reports as to why this was, either he lived in the area or he had an aunt that lived in the area and he was visiting her, regardless his name did come up at the time of Holly Ann's disappearance. He was questioned and his car was searched, but there was no evidence found linking him to the disappearance of Holly Ann and he was released. He would ultimately be charged, though, with Holly Ann's kidnapping 17 years later in 2001.

[Amanda] With Holly Ann's case again, it really focused and centered on eyewitness testimony and there was no physical evidence because Holly has never been found. In the media, they interviewed the cashier who saw Holly Ann Hughes on the day of her disappearance and stated that when she came in to buy the soap, she was a nickel short, and the shop owner couldn't give it to her and that's how this employee that was interviewed remembered seeing her. The documentary also interviews him again and he says, you know, 17 years later “yes, I remember her. I remember it very clearly”. But the documentary also speaks about a witness who gave testimony in the trial, and I'll call her Ellen her name is in the documentary but I'm not going to use it here. So, Ellen lived across the street in a house up from Holly Ann and she testified that on the day that Holly Ann went missing she went to take a shower at her house, and she realized that she didn't have any soap. So, Ellen went to the same deli as Holly Ann to buy soap, but she was a nickel short. Is this a coincidence or did the people working at the deli get the two of them confused? I’m keeping in mind that cash was the common tender used to purchase things back in the 80s rather than credit or debit cards and maybe it was a common thing to see people come up short for their purchases in the same amount. It doesn't really go into detail of how old Ellen was at the time of Holly Ann's disappearance, but it's just something that was noted and highlighted in the documentary. Also with Holly Ann's case, a slew of witnesses would come forward when he was charged in 2001 who had reportedly been former alcoholics or drug addicts, that were saying that they had information about Andre Rand's connection to her disappearance and that they had a good memory of the events on that day 17 years later. These witnesses either did not come forward at the time of her disappearance or had given different statements previously and some of them had their memories refreshed through hypnosis, which is typically not admissible in court. And one of them would say that she knew that Andre Rand was a killer based on the way that he looked and testified against him in Holly Anne’s trial stating in an interview with media afterwards that she “just knew that she needed to do what she needed to do”. Another one of these witnesses who was also interviewed by media and on the documentary claimed that she had been playing with Holly Ann on the day that she was abducted, and she was six years old at the time and stated that Rand came up to them in his car and he was wearing a mask that covered his entire face, so she couldn't see his face. And he offered them candy and she said that Holly Ann was pulled into the car, and she never saw her again. She did not tell the story back when Holly Ann first disappeared and she also claimed that, like I said, she couldn't see the man's face because his whole face was covered by the mask and… she also claims to have known all of the victims that Rand kidnapped. She was friends with all of them, except for Hank Guaffario and she initially gets Tiahese’s name incorrect, calling her Latisha. In the documentary they asked her what she thought about knowing all of these kids that started to disappear and she said she didn't think anything of it at the time but now that she's older she felt like she… “she felt the need to do what she needed to do”. And I'm not by any means at all saying that these witnesses are lying, but I think it's important to understand this as well and I talked about it a little bit earlier, the media absolutely slaughtered Andre Rand in the press. They called him “a sicko”, a “scuzz ball”, “Hannibal Lecter”, a “boogeyman”, a “sex fiend”, a “madman”. the “pied piper of Staten Island” and they painted this horrible picture of him. And I just want to keep in mind that the only thing that convicted him in the first case was all witness testimony, there was no physical or biological evidence found connecting him to Jennifer's case for which he was already serving sentence for. It was all circumstantial and the only connection was that she was found 150 yards from his campsite, but there were other people living in that area as well the painted an awful picture of him for being homeless and a drifter and stating that he was faking his mental illness, but there are a lot of people that are homeless for a variety of reasons and they're not all murderers, they're not all sexual deviants. And I do understand that Rand had a history of sexual assault, and alleged sexual assault, I'm not by any means saying that he's an innocent man. I just think that it's important to know that this is how he was painted in the media and that all the evidence against him came from witness testimony and this potentially led to his conviction in both cases as he ends up being convicted of Holly Ann’s kidnapping on October 19th, 2004. Holly Ann's body has never been found there's no physical evidence linking him to Holly Ann’s disappearance, but he was painted as a monster. I don't know if there were any biological samples taken from Jennifer's body after she was found and if there was if that has ever been tested. I did see in an article that there had been requests to get Rams DNA collected as well I don't know if that was ever done but Rand would end up being sentenced to another 25 years to life for first degree kidnapping of Holly Ann Hughes and he will be eligible for parole in 2037 and at that time he'll be 93 years old. And the only reason I bring up all of this and concern about the circumstantial nature of the case is just the concern that there was potentially not due process, and I don't feel that regardless of his actual innocence or guilt, I have concern that he was not truly perceived as innocent until proven guilty.

[Amanda] One more thing briefly mentioned in the documentary was that Andre Rand was questioned regarding participation in satanic rituals. One of the theories going around was that Rand was stealing the children to sell to satanic cults and this was you know the 80s, this was not an unusual thing to crop up in these types of cases. Some of the detectives interviewed in the documentary believe that Rand was deeply involved in satanic cults, and they were practicing on the grounds of Willowbrook. In 1987 Jennifer Schweiger’s family would receive an anonymous letter stating that Rand had sold children to the Church of the Process. This is the same cult that was linked to the Son of Sam murders. This letter was linked back to being written by a woman named Veronica Lueken who had her own religious following. And the film makers attempted to talk to members of her following, one woman did talk but said that she didn't want to have her identity shown stating that Veronica was having visions of human sacrifices being done by the cults and her life had been threatened, so she was scared to have her identity shown. Another retired detective Frank Saez said that he had interviewed Rand at Sing Sing regarding his possible participation in satanic rituals, but that they had found no evidence and believed that he did not run with that crowd. And as I mentioned earlier there were upwards of 30 potential victims that were looked at for connection to Andre Rand and I'm just going to briefly talk about some of these other names that came up when I was researching for this episode. I don't have anywhere close to 30 names to go over, but some of these were mentioned in the documentary, other ones were ones that just kept coming up. They are all open unsolved cases so I'm hoping that by talking about them maybe somebody listening will have some information that may give some closure to the families of these victims.

[Amanda] Alice Pereira was born on October 1st, 1966. On July 7th, 1972, a few months after Rand was released from prison for the attempted sexual assault of the 9-year-old girl I mentioned at the start of his case, Alice was playing in the lobby of the 600 block of Tysons Lane apartment complex with her 8-year-old brother Angelo. Around 3:30 PM, Angelo stepped away for a few brief moments and that was the last confirmed sighting of 6-year-old Alice. Alice had black hair, hazel eyes, and was wearing a pair of blue shorts with gold buttons, a red polo shirt and red sneakers. She was reported missing by her mother Inez Pereira around 6:30 PM. Her parents were separated at the time of her disappearance and her father was initially looked at as a suspect but was later cleared. Andre Rand was working as a painter at the apartment complex and a witness would come forward saying that Alice was seen walking away with him. He was questioned regarding her disappearance but because there was no evidence linking him, he was released. Alice's aunt was interviewed on the Cropsey documentary and they're still really hoping for some closure. Her case is still unsolved, and she's never been found.

[Amanda] Tiahese Jackson was also covered in the documentary very briefly to his was born on October 5th, 1972. On August 14th, 1983, 10-year-old Tiahese was living with her mother and three siblings at the Mariners harbor hotel on Forest Ave in Staten Island. They had moved there after their apartment burned down and were planning to move South. Around 1:30 PM while her mother was napping, another resident of the motel sent Tiahese to purchase chicken wings from the crown supermarket on Richmond Ave. Tiahese unfortunately never returned. She was wearing a dark blue ski jacket with white trim, a white ruffled blouse or sweater, blue gitano jeans, blue plastic mesh shoes, a gold necklace with a butterfly charm, a silver bangle bracelet on her left wrist, and had two purple combs in her brown hair. Tiahese has diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, and Brights disease, which is a kidney disorder that requires medication and treatment. She was also diagnosed with learning disabilities and her left eye is lazy and would turn inwards. Her mother reported her missing after waking up from her nap a couple hours later and realizing that she was gone. Her disappearance was 12 days after Rand had been released from prison for the law unlawful imprisonment of the children on the bus. He was viewed as the prime suspect in her case because he had a campsite at the Baron Hirsch cemetery less than half a mile from the motel, and Tiahese’s mother said that she had seen a man matching his description loitering in the area. In the documentary it was reported that her brother would say that he saw her talking to a man that “looked like Andre” but I'm not sure when this report was taken, if it was at the time of her disappearance or after Jennifer disappeared and he was arrested. At that point Tiahese’s case was still unsolved and she has never been found.

[Amanda] Henry ‘Hank” Guaffario is another victim that was talked about on the documentary. Hank was born December 7th, 1961. Hank lived with his parents and three brothers in the 90s block of Herberton Avenue. This is the same block as Andre Rand either lived or his aunt lived, still unclear on that. This is also around the corner from where Holly Ann Hughes lived. Hank went missing on June 9th, 1984, he had gone out drinking and was last seen at the Spa Lounge in the Port Richmond area of Staten Island. He had been turned down service earlier at another establishment called Mugs Away. He stayed at Spa Lounge until it closed and that was his last confirmed sighting. He was wearing a red and white striped T-shirt, dark blue jeans, and white sneakers. He is mentally disabled with a low IQ, but able to communicate and function at the mental and emotional level of a 15-year-old. Hank was later reported missing around 7:00 PM. One interesting coincidence which was portrayed by some of the retired law enforcement interviewed on the Cropsey documentary was that Hank was standing behind a news reporter in one of the pieces covering the disappearance of Holly Ann Hughes, however he lived around the corner from her so it's potentially not that surprising since there were a lot of people standing in the background and I'm sure they all lived in the area as well. Unfortunately, law enforcement linked this is a connection to Andre Rand, but he was never charged with his disappearance and I'm not sure if he was ever questioned.

[Amanda] The rest of these aren't discussed in the documentary but they came up quite a bit when I was researching and since they're all unsolved cases I wanted to cover them in hopes that maybe someone has information that can help bring some closure. So, Sylvia Alice Lwowski was born on April 28th 1959. She had blonde hair, hazel eyes, pierced ears, and wore glasses. On September 6th, 1975, at the age of 22 Sylvia had plans to go to the movies with her fiancé Charles Joseph Cirronella. She was wearing a white button up sweater, green shirt, brown shoes, a watch, and a heart-shaped engagement ring. She was also carrying a brown handbag. Her fiancé would later report that they were on Richmond Ave near the Kmart Plaza when they got into an argument. He stated that she threw her glasses against the dashboard of the car and left the vehicle stating that she would take a bus home. He would later come to her family's home and let them know that she had taken off from the car. There is very little information found on the case. A couple of sources said that it wasn't really investigated and that she was labeled as a runaway. Her case is listed as having suspected foul play involved, there's no documented connection to Andre Rand other than he lived in the campsite near where she was reported to be last seen. She's never been found and is still listed as a missing person, and I think this thing kind of comes up in a couple of the cases that I'm going to talk about is that just because they were seen in an area near where Andre Rand could have been doesn't mean that he had anything to do with their disappearance. But I feel like unfortunately some of these cases could have been tunnel visioned in that effect.

[Amanda] Another case that Rand’s name comes up in kind of like a similar circumstance is in the case of Audrey Lyn Nerenberg. Audrey was born on September 24th, 1958, to parents Milton and Evelyn Nerenberg.She had a sister Brenda and a brother Steven. At the age of 15 Audrey was diagnosed with hebephrenic schizophrenia, a condition also referred to as disorganized schizophrenia, which can cause disorganized behaviors or thought patterns, short lasting delusions and hallucinations, and disorganized patterns of speech. Audrey had been hospitalized multiple times at a number of different psychiatric care facilities from the time of her diagnosis to the time of her disappearance but was improving and being treated as an outpatient and was taking a high dose of Thorazine to help with her schizophrenia symptoms. On July 14th, 1977, it was the hottest day on record on the East Coast reaching 98 degrees in New York City and leading to a large-scale power failure. To escape the heat, Milton, Evelyn Steven and Audrey got into their car around 2:00 PM and they went to Staten Island where they heard on the radio there was power, and they saw a movie at the Jerry Lewis theater. They then had dinner and enjoyed their day they arrived home around 10:30 PM and went to bed. The next morning started as a normal day. Steven and Brenda went to school, Audrey due to her condition was not attending school. She told her family that she was going to go for a walk to a store around the corner and a couple blocks away to buy cigarettes. That was the last time that she was seen she was wearing a pair of dungarees shorts, a blue tube top, clear plastic open toe shoes, was carrying a brown shoulder bag, and may have had a sweater tied around her waist. She liked to do that. While there's no official link to Andre Rand in this case and some sources you will see her listed as a potential victim of his and I've included her on here as this is still an open missing person’s case. Her father has a blog, I’ll link it, where he is still begging for information about her disappearance. With disorganized schizophrenia Audrey at times could repeat previous actions so there was some speculation that she could have gotten confused on her walk, and she could have returned to Staten Island because she had been there the previous day with her family and Andre Rand had a campsite at or near the Jerry Lewis theater, which is why she's come up as a potential victim. And it's not clear to me whether he was officially questioned regarding her disappearance or not. But there's also speculation that she may still be alive as an inpatient of psychiatric facility listed as a Jane Doe. Unfortunately, Audrey has never been found and is still considered a missing person.

[Amanda] 44-year-old Shin Lee was a registered nurse at Willowbrook State School, this is another case. She was last seen on July 20th, 1978, walking home through the woods after her 3 to 11:45 PM shift in Building 11 as she regularly did. Unfortunately, I couldn't find much information on her case aside from 2 news articles and her case being mentioned in a video about another potential victim. One article referenced that Shin Lee was reported missing by her family on July 20th. Another one said it was July 22nd. Regardless, police would spend a couple of days searching for her, but she wasn't found until a few weeks later in August, when members from her church and family started to get together and they searched the grounds of Willowbrook and they found her partially decomposed body in a shallow grave. The area where she was found had been searched multiple times, but police felt that the heavy rain recently had loosened the dirt which held her, and this led to her being found when she was. Shin Lee had reportedly received a death threat prior to her disappearance from a coworker and she had given that coworker a negative evaluation, but this was reportedly unrelated to her disappearance and murder. Her case is still unsolved.

[Amanda] Another case is that of Ethel Louise Atwell. Ethel Louise was born on April 6th, 1932. She was a mother of four, lived in Newark NJ, but she commuted to Staten Island NY to work at Willowbrook State School as a nurse's aide. Her son Kenneth on an episode of ‘Missing’ with Kristen Thorne on ABC7 would describe her as always wanting to help people, that she was a mom to the patients and sometimes she would bring some of them home for the weekend. On October 24th, 1978, Ethel arrived at work following her usual routine she backed into a parking spot that edged up to the woods on the ground. Shortly after her arrival two employees would call law enforcement reporting that they had heard women screams and a man shouting, “come here come here” and a woman's voice responding, “no you'll hurt me I'm not going with you you'll hurt me” and screams. Ethel’s sons would get a call from Willowbrook alerting them that something had happened and that they couldn't locate Ethel. When her sons Kenneth and Frank Junior arrived, they found her car with all the doors open it was covered in fingerprint powder and several of their moms’ belongings were on the ground around her car, marked and included buttons from her jacket, her purse, a shoe, and her dentures. Her keys would be found in the woods indicating that she had been dragged in that direction. Upon further search of the woods, they found a path that had tire tracks embedded in it that would go through a large hole in a fence big enough for a truck to fit through. Ethel’s not been found and is still considered a missing person.

[Amanda] And the last case I wanted to talk about was Brenda Cecilia Crowley. Brenda was born on October 5th, 1963. She lived with her mother in the 100 block of Harbor Rd in the New York City borough of Staten Island when she went missing. She went missing sometime in February or March of 1979 or 1980, I saw both listed in the research. Brenda had seven siblings who had all run away from home at one time or another, but they all tended to come back home. Life was not great and Brenda's mother and her stepfather were both alcoholics. Things at home were just not good, which led to, you know, unfortunately Brenda running away and unfortunately led to the discrepancy in her time frame of being missing. Brenda had been attending Curtis High School but was expelled as absent without leave in February of 1980. Brenda's mom told her family that she had filed a missing person to report but it actually was found that it had never been reported until much later when one of Brenda's sisters realized and filed one. The family home would later burn down sometime in 1980. Brenda's mother was strangled to death by a man she met in a bar in 1981 and the only recent movement in this case, I guess if you want to call it recent, was in 2008. A family member of Brenda approached police and stated that Brenda had been murdered and her body was buried in a backyard in East Islip on Long Island. The backyard was dug up but only dog bones were found. Brenda is still missing and has not been found.

[Amanda] I'm not gonna lie, I had a hard time deciding on how I wanted to wrap up this episode. I found this case interesting frustrating and leaving me with a lot of questions but my main motivation was covering this case was not to dispute Andre Rand's innocence or guilt. That's not my place to judge. I wanted to highlight the number of unsolved cases that came up in my research for this episode I hope that maybe someone listening may remember seeing or hearing something that might lead to some progress on one of these cases. If you have any information on any of the cases covered in this episode, please reach out to the New York Police department at 718-667-2211. Coming up we'll be moving upstate to Rochester, NY where I will be covering the Double Initial murders and then back downstate to New York City, where I hope to bring you some more dark history surrounding the development of New York City famous Central Park. I'm working on trying to sprinkle in some paranormal episodes along the way either as bonus or full episodes. Please don't forget to check out my blog posts linked in the description for more. You can also connect with me on Facebook through the New York’s Dark Side Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram at NY Dark Side Pod, you can also send me an e-mail at nydarksidepodcast@gmail.com. I hope you keep listening and most of all I hope you stay curious.