Subject: MISSING WITHOUT A TRACE.
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 20:22:50 -0400
From: Milton Nerenberg m_nerenberg@yahoo.com
Please email this to everybody on your email list.
MISSING WITHOUT A TRACE:
Page 10 The Brooklyn Skyline July 16, 2002 By Elisha Pappacoda
Phone: 718-421-5300 EMAIL:
elishapappacoda@aol.com
First photo is Audrey Lyn Nerenberg at 18 the time of her disappearance and
an age-progressed photo as she would appear today. Third photo is Audrey and
her mom in 1976 on the porch of their house at 1253 Ryder Street.
Last photo is same as the first except it's a stand up version taken in the house.
On July 15, 1977 a Brooklyn teenager disappeared.
25 years later, she hasn't been found
July 15, 2002 marked 25 long years of a living nightmare for 69-year-old
Milton Nerenberg and his family.
On that day in 1977 his middle child, Audrey Lyn, disappeared at the age of 18 from her Flatbush neighborhood and has
not been heard from since.
Nerenberg's never-ending search has not yielded any conclusive evidence as to the whereabouts of his dark-haired daughter, who would be 43 years old today.
Over the past 25 years, Brooklyn has changed, but Nerenberg's life has been put on hold.
The summer of 1977 is stamped with the murderous spree of "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz and the New York City blackouts.
The infamous Mafia killers headquartered at the Gemini Lounge, close to the family's former neighborhood of Canarsie,
have either been locked up or buried.
But still Nerenberg, who has since retired to Florida, wonders where the time has gone.
Nerenberg has spent most of the past quarter century becoming a skilled detective by his own right. He has spent hours combing
Brooklyn beaches, filtering out crank calls, consulting with countless law enforcement agencies, lobbying for stronger laws in
Washington and befriending families of missing and murdered children.
Working with parents in similar situations, Nerenberg mails posters of Audrey to the parents of missing kids to post in
their hometowns, and does the same for them.
No suspects have ever been brought up on charges involving Audrey's disappearance, but Nerenberg is closely watching a
few of his own with the New York City Missing- Persons Squad as they try to unravel the mystery of a missing girl."
The case is moving along just a little tiny bit but I say every little bit helps," Nerenberg said.
Audrey's Story
-----------------
July 15, 1977 was muggy and hot. Audrey Lyn
Nerenberg, a thin brunette, walked out of her Ryder Street
home and down Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway.
She wore bleached cut-off jean shorts, a blue tube top and
clear plastic sandals, and carried a small brown purse with enough
money to buy a $2 pack of cigarettes.
She never came back.
It has now been 25 years since Milton Nerenberg, his
wife Evelyn and two children Steven and Brenda, last heard
Audrey's voice.
When Audrey was 16 she developed hebephrenic
schizophrenia, a condition which can dramatically affect
personality by causing hallucinations as well as irresponsible
and unpredictable behavior.
Her father insists that she was "getting better" by 1977
and the records of Dr. Valentine Wolf, who Audrey was referred to in October
1975, show the girl was released from Brooklyn State
Hospital in September 1976, prescribed
anti-psychotic drugs and sent home.
The teenager, who liked shopping at Kings Plaza, had
sometimes gotten lost close to home but always had the
presence of mind to call her father for
help. Never did her family expect her to lose her way for
good.
Did Audrey simply become confused and wander off,
ending up as a Jane Doe lying alone in a nearby hospital? Did
she run away and begin a new life,
forgetting her loving family altogether?
Or, did the unthinkable happen - was Audrey
Nerenberg kidnapped?
The day of her disappearance, Nerenberg received a
chilling phone call to his Flatbush home from a self-professed
kidnapper who said he had Audrey.
"Get as much money as you can and I'll call back," the
caller told Nerenberg before slamming down the phone.
The nervous father quickly contacted the FBI, who sent
four far from inconspicuous agents running up the family's Ryder Street
steps.
The G-men, decked out in dark pinstripe suits, waited in the Nerenberg's living room for the call-back from the kidnapper for three hours. When the phone did not ring, they abruptly labeled the call "a fluke" and abandoned the case. They never even stepped foot into Audrey's bedroom, recalls Nerenberg.
He speculates that if Audrey was kidnapped, her
assailant could have been a friend or neighbor and may have
seen the FBI agents arrive.
In August, 1982, a Kings Highway resident and friend of
Audrey's younger brother was arrested for sexually attacking a
woman at knife point in her Upper East Side apartment. He
was convicted, served almost 20 years and was recently
released from Elmira State Prison.
Also under investigation is the site of a former ice cream
shop on Flatbush Avenue where Audrey claimed to have been molested by an
employee one year prior to her disappearance. A large,
patched up hole in the basement wall of the store is being
investigated.
The circumstances surrounding Audrey's disappearance
made her case less likely to be carefully scrutinized by 1970s
law enforcement. And today, the
Missing Persons Squad must trace stale clues left over from
the past two decades in order to retrace Audrey's last known foot steps.
Although she was ill, the missing 18-year-old was not
searched for the way a missing 8 year-old would have been.
As a missing adult, she was considered nothing more than
another runaway.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
was not even founded until 1984, and organizations for missing
adults arose years later.
"There are certainly not as many resources for
[missing]adults, but there are one or two organizations out
there," said Janine Lucas of the NCMEC.
But Audrey's father is not satisfied with the smaller, lesser
known organizations geared at finding missing adults. Instead, he
continues to work on a bill called the "Audrey Nerenberg Act."
On April 10, 2002, Florida Congresswoman Karen
Thurman introduced H. R. 4162, also known as the Audrey
Nerenberg Act, into the House of Representatives. The act
seeks to amend the Missing Children's Assistance Act to
include adults determined to have a mental capacity of a child
under 18 years old. Nerenberg put pressure on
Congresswoman Thurman to get the bill reinstated after it's
original version died earlier this year - and he succeeded.
If passed, the act would allow adults deemed to have the
mentality of a child, much like Audrey, to be listed in the national data base
for Missing and Exploited Children. Only photos of those included in the
database are put on missing posters in Walmart stores around the country and
mailed out on postcards door-to-door.
"These are children - they're medically certified as children, they belong
with the children," Nerenberg said.
If the bill is not passed this session, it will be yet another
barrier in Nerenberg's less than lucky search.
In the meantime,
her father is coming to grips with the possibility that someone
hurt his teenage daughter. "Since no one has ever came forward
I'm starting to think that somebody must have harmed her," he said.
Today Audrey Lyn Nerenberg would be 43 years old.
Her hair would still be dark wavy hair, possibly with the
addition of a few strands of gray scattered
throughout. The freckles on her cheeks and hands would
remain and, as well as the tiny gap between her two front teeth
Although Audrey is just a memory in the minds of those
who love her, she is not alone.
Her father is flanked by concerned citizens, retired
detectives and parents of missing kids who have come upon his website dedicated to
Audrey. With an army of support behind him, Nerenberg vows to continue to
cut through countless obstacles while he clings to any hope he may have
left after 25 sorrowful years.
If you have any information on the disappearance of
Audrey Lyn Nerenberg please call The NYC Missing Persons
Squad at 212-473-2042. There is a $10,000 reward offered
for accurate information leading to the whereabouts of
Audrey, living or deceased.
