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| Mozino, Dawn M. May 22,1989; Pennsylvania 23 YO | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 18 2006, 02:30 PM (644 Views) | |
| oldies4mari2004 | Aug 18 2006, 02:30 PM Post #1 |
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Unregistered
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/m/mozino_dawn.html Dawn Marie Mozino Above Images: Mozino, circa 1989 Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance Missing Since: May 22, 1989 from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Classification: Endangered Missing Date Of Birth: June 19, 1965 Age: 23 years old Height and Weight: 4'10, 110 pounds Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair. Mozino's ears are pierced. Clothing/Jewelry Description: A gray skirt, a white shirt, a maroon vest, and a black tie. Medical Conditions: Mozino has been diagnosed with a learning disability. Details of Disappearance Mozino was last seen departing from Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on May 22, 1989. She was employed at the facility at the time. Mozino planned to utilize public transportation to return to her residence in the 100 block of Eaton Drive in Wayne, Pennsylvania after her shift. She never arrived home and has not been heard from again. Mozino's friend told authorities that she was accompanied by Thomas W. Hawkins Jr. shortly before she disappeared. The witness positively identified his photo. Hawkins served six years in prison for the murder of a teenage girl in 1980. He was charged with his niece's 1989 rape and homicide after Mozino vanished. Hawkins was convicted of the girl's murder in Pennsylvania and was sentenced to death in 1990. He has never been charged in connection with Mozino's case. Authorities offered to commute Hawkins's death sentence to life imprisonment in exchange for information about Mozino's disappearance, but he denied any involvement in her case. Mozino's mother said that Hawkins worked with her daughter at the Paoli Rehabilitation Center in the mid-1980s. Mozino was later hired as a hostess at Bryn Mawr Hospital's nutrition department. Her mother told investigators that Hawkins wanted to work at the facility and asked Mozino to assist him with an interview at the hospital on several occasions. Her mother also said that he gave her daughter several rides from the bus stop near the rehabilitation center in the past. Mozino was involved with the Special Olympics in 1989. Her disappearance remains unsolved. Radnor Township, Pennsylvania authorities are handling Mozino's investigation. Investigating Agency If you have any information concerning this case, please contact: Radnor Township Police Department 610-668-0500 Source Information Radnor Township Police Department The Philadelphia Inquirer Times News Publishing The Daily Times Of Deleware County The Doe Network Updated 1 time since October 12, 2004. Last updated September 19, 2005; Clothing/Jewelry Description added. Charley Project Home |
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| monkalup | Dec 14 2006, 01:16 AM Post #2 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Sunday, February 18, 1990 Section: NEIGHBORS MAIN LINE Edition: PENNA Page: M04 Memo: COVER STORY A version of this story appeared in Delaware Neighbors. LOVED ONES GONE WITHOUT A TRACE By Mary Anne Janco, Special to The Inquirer TEXT: On the night of May 23, Andrew Mozino of Radnor was watching I Know My First Name is Steven, a television movie about the abduction of a young boy. "I thought, 'What a horrible experience,' " Mozino recalled. Then, he got the phone call. His 23-year-old daughter, Dawn Marie Mozino, was missing. Dawn had finished work May 22 at Bryn Mawr Hospital and was supposed to meet her boyfriend at his apartment behind the K mart in Strafford. The couple planned to meet a friend about 6 p.m. and head to the Upper Main Line Y to work out. It wouldn't have been unusual for Dawn to return home from the Y in the evening and go straight to bed, since she started work early at Bryn Mawr Hospital. So, her mother, Diane, didn't suspect that anything was wrong until Dawn did not return home on the afternoon of May 23. There had been no phone call from Dawn during the day. That itself was unusual. Dawn, a former student at Devereux Day School, had a learning disability and followed a set routine, family members said. "You always knew where Dawn was," her mother said. As Dawn's mother grew more apprehensive, she checked Dawn's answering machine for messages and discovered that Dawn hadn't met her boyfriend the previous afternoon. "I started to really panic," her mother said. "We started making phone calls. Nobody could tell us anything." "We were concerned the minute we got the report," said Sgt. Luther Leighton of the Radnor Police Department. "It was so out of character." "The searches started right away," her mother recalled. "My head was spinning. I was just so upset. You go through so many emotions. So many things happen so fast. The phone never stopped. At points, it was just overwhelming. "With the urgency you feel inside, you want it to go so fast. Every minute counts to you." * Dawn Marie Mozino is one of nearly 70,000 missing people whose cases are on file with the National Crime Information Center, an information network that is used by police departments across the country. Some of those missing people are runaways. Some are children kidnapped by relatives in custody disputes; others, the victims of foul play. State Trooper Malcolm Murphy of the Media barracks estimated that 100 to 150 cases nationwide are like the Dawn Marie Mozino case: disappearances that are totally unexplained. Her case is not the only unsolved disappearance haunting Delaware County families and police: * On May 17, 1975, Wendy Eaton of Middletown decided not to join a family golf outing in order to stay home and sunbathe. When her parents and brother returned home about 5:30 p.m., the house was empty. There was no note from Wendy. * On Aug. 23, 1982, Shelley Diane Luty, a waitress at the Llanerch Diner in Upper Darby, left work at 11 p.m. Her family has not heard from her. In all three cases, foul play is suspected. DAWN MOZINO In the days that followed Dawn Mozino's disappearance, volunteer fire companies helped search the area, tracking dogs were brought in, and Town Watch volunteers circulated posters of Dawn throughout the area. The Radnor police crawled through underground pipes near the K mart store in Strafford in search of Dawn, professional divers volunteered to drag local ponds, and the county Criminal Investigation Division became involved in the case. Psychics offered tips on where they felt Dawn might be. The Radnor police distributed that information to local police departments. When local police departments found an area that matched the description provided by a psychic, more searches were carried out. "Usually we like to rely on physical work and basic police techniques," Leighton said. "At that time, we were so limited with information. We felt if there was a remote possibility that some information might be obtained from it, we felt obligated to pursue that aspect. "Any information given was checked out. We felt an obligation to the family." Diane Mozino praised the Radnor police as "wonderful." "Not a week has gone by when someone hasn't talked to me," she said. ''The support in that way is outstanding. It lets me know in my mind that no one is going to forget about it. "Probably one of the greatest fears of any mother is that people are going to forget it. "You're constantly awake and thinking things over in your head. . . . Your mind keeps going. It's the first thing I think of in the morning, the last thing I think of at night. "In the beginning, I couldn't stand to be out of the house. I kept thinking: If the phone would just ring." Mozino said she found herself wondering what kind of person could abduct someone. She read a number of books to try to understand the workings of the criminal mind. "It bites into your faith in God. It bites into your faith in fellow man. "You don't carry a child for nine months and not feel someone has been ripped and torn away from you. No amount of soothing can make it right. It creates almost an insanity in you. Your mind's flooded with events of the past, right to the day she was born. Your whole insides are torn apart. "It's an emotional roller coaster. You just want to know when it's going to end." Leighton believes that the case has "gotten to be a personal thing to everyone involved. I think it's affected every man and woman on the police force. We'd like to give the family some answers. "I sympathize with any family who has a missing person. I never realized before how frustrating it can be." Leighton keeps his notes on Dawn's case in a gray file on his desk. Her ''missing person" poster is tacked above his desk, and information on the case fills dozens of yellow folders. References to the case crop up three or four times a week - like a recent tip from a New Jersey police department that was quickly checked out and proved unfounded. "It's almost haunting," Leighton said. "It's there all the time." Leighton suspects Dawn's warm, gentle personality is part of what keeps the case alive in so many minds. "People who met her never forgot her," said Andrew Mozino. Dawn was devoted to her job delivering meals to patients at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Dawn would sit and talk to patients and stop back later if she felt a patient needed her company. Dawn previously worked at the Main Line Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, and she kept in touch with her friends there. Dawn's life revolved around her job, her friends and Special Olympics. Initially, there was some speculation that Dawn was upset because she was not going to a Special Olympics meet. But that theory was quickly discounted. Dawn would bounce back quickly from disappointment, relatives said. She had overcome a lot of challenges in her life, her mother said. She attended the Radnor public schools and Marple Vo-Tech, and graduated from Devereux in 1985. To the friends she left behind at graduation, she wrote: "Keep your head up and try your best." Dawn, who stood only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, competed in track, basketball and soccer in the Special Olympics. The medals from Dawn's Special Olympics victories hang on the mantel in the living room of her home on Eaton Drive in Wayne. Pictures of Dawn and her younger sister, Cathy, line the front hall. "I try not to think of it," said Cathy, 20. "I'm just hoping it will be solved soon. I find myself looking at people along the side of the road. You still look for her. I guess I'll never stop." "I don't know when you get to the point of giving in to the thought of never seeing them again," Diane Mozino said. "I don't know where the cutoff point is. "This is eight months, and it seems like this," she said, holding her thumb and index finger an inch apart. Diane Mozino has contacted the congresswoman representing her home town of Ridgewood, N.J., to push federal legislation to get the FBI involved in missing-person cases without delay. "I just want to know where she is," her mother said. "I want to know what's happened to her in the worst way. I have a right to know that." WENDY EATON Wendy Eaton's is the oldest missing-person case on file with the Media barracks. The day she disappeared, May 17, 1975, was an almost perfect spring day. The kind of day that's just right for soaking up the sun, playing a round of golf or strolling around town. It was just nine days until her 16th birthday. She had picked up her driver's permit that Saturday morning. Her parents and brother were going to the Edgmont Country Club to play golf; they urged her to come along. Instead, Wendy decided to sunbathe for a while at her home on Moccasin Trail in Middletown. Her mother recalls catching a glimpse of Wendy sunbathing on the roof outside her bedroom window as the family car pulled away from the house. That was the last time the Eatons saw her. "The minute I walked in the door, I sensed something was wrong," said Roland "Bud" Eaton, Wendy's father. "The house was empty, and you knew it shouldn't be." The family spent two hours searching for Wendy, desperately trying to retrace her steps. Then they called the state police. Slowly, some of the pieces began to fall into place: Wendy had spoken to her best friend earlier in the day and had planned to go to Media to buy a birthday present for her brother. "At least four people saw her walking from the house toward Media," her father said. She was last seen at 3:10 p.m. at Indian Lane and Media Station Road, Bud Eaton said. "Then . . . zero." State Trooper Murphy was part of the original investigation and has kept tabs on the case for 15 frustrating years. He is not ready to give up. In fact, the state police recently revitalized the investigation, asking Frank Bender, an internationally known sculptor from Philadelphia, to prepare a bust of what Wendy Eaton would look like today as a 30-year-old woman. Bender has assisted police around the nation in various fugitive and missing-person cases. In each case, Bender tries to find out as much as possible about the person through photographs, medical records and family history. And, he said, he attempts to capture the inner spirit as well as the outer appearance. "With Wendy Eaton, I just felt she never really had a chance to become her own person," Bender said. The bust of Wendy Eaton sits in Murphy's office at the Media barracks. Spread out on Murphy's desk is a 318-page file stacked with police reports and information on her case. Pasted on the wall are four black-and-white aerial shots of the Eaton's old neighborhood - the Elwyn section of Middletown. "It's a priority case," Murphy said. "It always has been." The Eaton case was one of five unsolved cases the Media barracks recently registered with the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, a nationwide program designed to link similar crimes. The Eaton case may be the most difficult of the five, Murphy said. In this case, there was no crime scene. Bloodhounds tracked Wendy's path to the intersection of Indian Lane and Media Station Road, but then . . . nothing. "She walks down the street, comes to an intersection and she's gone," Murphy said. "There's no screaming, no signs of a struggle." Over the years, the state police have tracked down reported sightings of the missing girl, investigated religious cults, compared her dental records with the teeth of numerous unidentified bodies across the country, and interviewed scores of people. All dead ends. As the investigation continues today, witnesses have been re-interviewed, and unanswered questions have been asked again. Police have sought clues by sifting through the computer databases that were not available when she disappeared. Anything to find out what happened to Wendy Eaton. "The odds much favor she was abducted," her father said. "She took nothing with her. She started doing something and was obviously interrupted." "She was a very friendly, open child," said her mother, Joan. A sophomore at Penncrest High School, Wendy was an honor student, a Girl Scout and active with several local church groups. On the evening she disappeared, she had planned to go to a rehearsal for a Christian singing group at the Middletown Presbyterian Church - an event her parents say she would not have wanted to miss. It was Wendy's deep interest in religion that led her parents to pursue the possibility that she might have joined a religious cult. "Wendy was an idealist," her mother said. Her favorite show was The Waltons. "Our hope was that if she was alive, she'd gotten tangled up in a cult," her mother said. "We chased them all over the country." The Eatons contacted various cults and attended rallies sponsored by cults in hopes of spotting their daughter. At one point, Bud Eaton traveled to the Wilkes-Barre area to investigate a possible sighting of Wendy with a cult group. Among the sects the Eatons checked out were the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and the Forever Family. A local coroner offered to compare Wendy's dental records with those of Jonestown victims whose remains were shipped back to the United States. He found nothing. Sometimes, the phone would ring in the middle of the night - and the Eatons would scramble out of bed to join the state police in checking out a possible sighting of Wendy. They hired three private investigators to track down out-of-state leads in the case. Bud Eaton, then a marketing executive for Sun Refinery & Marketing Co., traveled a lot in those days. He said he would always look for Wendy at airports along the way. Sun employees helped start a $2,000 reward fund, and family members have boosted that reward to $10,000. Wendy's name was registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has recorded 23,958 cases since it was founded in 1984. Each month, the center sends the family a listing of the places it has sent Wendy's picture. Her picture has appeared on milk cartons. Over the years, the family begged the FBI to get involved in the case. But the FBI does not get involved unless it believes a federal statute has been violated, as in kidnapping or extortion, FBI spokesman John Kundts said. "We can't make any assumption that criminal activity was involved," he said. "We need evidence." The FBI did become involved once - during an extortion attempt, Bud Eaton recalled. A young man had called the Eatons during the Christmas holidays to say that he would produce Wendy for $10,000. While the family suspected it was a hoax, the money was delivered and two men arrested. The Eatons now say they have run out of ideas for finding their daughter. "Every stone had been turned," Joan Eaton said. "We didn't expect it to go on so long," her husband said. "In the beginning, we thought it would be a couple days, then a week. It never turned out." "They say time heals," Joan Eaton said, "but it's always there." SHELLEY LUTY "From day one, I was convinced there was something wrong here," said Upper Darby police Lt. Nick Bratsis as he opened the file on Shelley Luty. "It was just a gut feeling initially. It wasn't a case of someone spending a week down the shore." Shelley Luty was 19 when her stepfather reported her missing Aug. 24, 1982. Shelley had finished her shift at the Llanerch Diner in Upper Darby about 11 p.m. Aug. 23. "She was supposed to meet a girlfriend after work," Bratsis said. "They never met." Also missing was her car - a light-green 1978 two-door Chevrolet Impala that had been parked across the street when she left work. When Shelley disappeared, she left behind a 2-year-old daughter. "She was very devoted to her child," Bratsis said. "I don't believe that she would willingly abandon the child. "We've checked out leads as far as California and Minnesota." The FBI did become involved in this investigation, Bratsis said. Neither he nor FBI spokesmen could explain why they would join this case, but not the other two. Township police and the FBI interviewed relatives, friends and former boyfriends. Some were given polygraph tests. At one point in the investigation, a former boyfriend and relatives thought Shelley might be the model they had seen in a magazine photo. But checks revealed the look-alike model to be a lifelong resident of California. The FBI closed its investigation on the mysterious disappearance in October 1984, according to agent Thomas Dowd. But, in Upper Darby, the case is still open. As the leads come in now, they are run down, Bratsis said. A lot of time is spent answering inquiries from other police departments that may want copies of her dental chart to match with unidentified bodies, he said. "Since she has not been identified, there's still a glimmer of hope," he said. Bratsis keeps in touch with the family, which has since moved out of state with Shelley's little girl. Her mother declined to be interviewed. "Her co-workers and employer spoke highly of her," Bratsis said. Shelley's mother also worked at the diner, and was scheduled to come in to work at 11 p.m. that night, just as her daughter's shift ended. About a half-hour before Shelley's shift ended, she was seen talking to a man. A sketch of the man was made, but it led nowhere. "We ran a trace on everybody," Bratsis said, noting that investigators had even tracked down a former boyfriend who was stationed in West Germany. "She was a beautiful, beautiful girl," Bratsis said. * A photograph of a young Wendy Eaton - smiling, with sparkling brown eyes - looks out over the living room of the Eatons' new home in Newtown Square. "We know thousands of things that she didn't do," her father said. "We don't know the one thing she did do - either voluntarily or involuntarily. "We're just hopeful that someone will come forward and give us the missing link that will put it all together. "Someone has to know something. No child just disappears." |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Dec 14 2006, 01:20 AM Post #3 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...opic=7283&st=0& |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | May 19 2009, 05:42 PM Post #4 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://cbs3.com/local/Dawn.Mozino.Missing.2.1012985.html May 19, 2009 6:41 am US/Eastern Family Desperate For Answers In 1989 Disappearance Reporting Walt Hunter PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ¯ Click to enlarge Dawn Mozino vanished in 1989 and her family is desperate for answers. CBS Twenty years after a local woman vanished, relatives are now struggling with the idea that the man who could hold the key to the case may take what he knows to his grave. Each May, they come. Each year, the tree dedicated to Dawn Mozino grows a little larger. But after two decades of hoping and praying, Dawn's mother and sister still have no answers about their loved one who vanished one afternoon in 1989. "I'd call it MIA, missing in America, and it shouldn't be that way, not for anyone," Dawn's mother Diane said. Dawn cherished her medals won at the Special Olympics and her family knows they signified an even bigger victory -- her triumph over a learning disability. The 23-year-old was waiting for a bus in the middle of Bryn Mawr headed to Special Olympics practice when a car pulled up; she got in, and was never seen again. "That's where her story ends, right there, from that point on, we don't know," Dawn's sister said. But police think Thomas Hawkins does know. Hawkins, convicted of another murder, is strongly suspected, though not charged with abducting and murdering Dawn. But as Hawkins' execution date approaches, he isn't talking, and if he dies, many believe what happened to Dawn may never been known. "The clock could be ticking … any information that he has about Dawn and what happened to her could leave this earth with him," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said. "Dawn was such a loving, peaceful person, what could she have possibly done to deserve this?" Dawn's mom wondered. So with flowers in their hands and tears in their eyes, they come and they question. But now it seems the time for them to get the answers they desperately need may be running out. "Somebody out there is responsible for taking her and that person needs to step forward and admit what he's done," Dawn's mom said. Prosecutors have offered Hawkins a deal of sorts: If he tells what happened to Dawn, he would be spared the death penalty and instead spend life behind bars. So far, Hawkins has given no sign he has any intention of cooperating. |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Jun 12 2009, 02:36 PM Post #5 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2009/05...25729424883.txt 20 years later, Dawn Mozino’s disappearance remains a mystery Published: Sunday, May 24, 2009 1 comment(s) | Email to a friend | Print version | ShareThis| RSS Feeds More Photos Click thumbnails to enlarge Cathy Mozino Miesen, right, with her mother, Diane Mozino, holds a photo of Dawn Mozino, at her mother’s home in Radnor. By JOHN M. ROMAN jroman@delcotimes.com Click to enlarge Dawn Marie Mozino, 23, of Radnor, a learning-disabled woman who enjoyed working at area hospitals and Special Olympics, disappeared without a trace after work one afternoon 20 years ago. Someone Dawn knew took advantage of her naive nature while she waited for a bus near Bryn Mawr Hospital, authorities believe. Abducted and believed murdered, her remains have never been found. In contrast to Dawn’s uncomplicated personality, her disappearance is one of the most baffling mysteries detectives in three counties have ever encountered. Despite a dogged investigation, detectives in Montgomery and Delaware counties have been unable to get a prime suspect — a convicted double-killer on death row — to provide the key to unlock the mystery of her whereabouts since she vanished May 22, 1989. Detectives crisscrossed the region from Bryn Mawr to Berwyn and from Graterford Prison to Philadelphia trying to come up with any answer to Dawn’s disappearance. Diane Mozino, 66, the mother of the petite young woman who resembled a teenager, has been almost as relentless as detectives in her quest to find the older of her two daughters. Mozino sat through two grisly trials of death-row killer Thomas W. Hawkins Jr. of Philadelphia, who once worked with Dawn at Paoli Hospital and asked for her help in getting a job at Bryn Mawr Hospital, Mozino said. Dawn worked as a hostess in the nutrition department of the hospital and wore a uniform. Mozino isn’t eager to see Hawkins executed for his conviction in 1994 of the murder of his 14-year-old niece in West Pottsgrove, Montgomery County. Not yet, anyway, because she and detectives hope Hawkins won’t take a dark secret to his grave. Hawkins, who was 27 at the time of Dawn’s disappearance, was named a primary suspect by former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor and the Radnor police, but has not been charged in connection with her disappearance. Hawkins is believed by authorities to be the last person seen with the friendly, trusting woman who had a minimal brain dysfunction. A hospital employee who had stopped at a traffic light positively identified Hawkins from a photo array as a person seen with Dawn at the bus stop at Lancaster and Bryn Mawr avenues in Lower Merion, Montgomery County, that tragic afternoon, police said. Dawn had left work at 3:30 p.m. and was wearing her uniform. As far back as 1993, then-lead investigator, retired Radnor Deputy Superintendent Luther “Lucky” Leighton, believed the 4-foot, 10-inch tall, 100-pound woman was the fatal victim of foul play. Hawkins is on death row at Graterford Prison on murder charges in connection with the strangulation/stabbing of his niece, Andrea Thomas. Hawkins killed her June 4, 1989 — about two weeks after Dawn vanished. Thomas, who was also sexually assaulted, was found in a bed at the home of her grandparents, Elmira and Thomas Hawkins Sr., who are Hawkins’ parents. Hawkins was convicted in 1990, but the state Supreme Court reversed the judgments. In 1994, he was retried, convicted, and again sentenced to death. Castor offered to back off the death penalty in the Thomas killing if Hawkins agreed to tell authorities what he knew about Mozino’s disappearance. Hawkins rejected the deal and has repeatedly denied any involvement in that case. Current Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said, “It may have happened 20 years ago, but this tragic disappearance is still in the forefront of our minds. “I would certainly be inclined to leave the offer on the table that he (Hawkins) could avoid the death penalty if he discloses the whereabouts of Dawn Mozino. Before I make a final decision on that, I would want to talk to Dawn’s family.” Ferman said her office is currently awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue that remains before them regarding the post-conviction appeal of Hawkins regarding the Andrea Thomas case. Hawkins murdered his niece two years after he was released on parole for the 1980 murder of Karen Stubbs, 15, of Reading, who was found strangled and stabbed in the throat in a locked dormitory room in the same apartment building where his parents lived in the basement. He pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in Berks County and served six years in prison. No deal Castor, now a Montgomery County commissioner, doubts Dawn’s mother will get her wish to interview Hawkins. He believes the convicted murderer will not agree to a meeting. “It brings it one step closer to saying I’ve done all I can do,” Mozino said during a recent interview at her home in Wayne, where she was accompanied by her daughter, Cathy Mozino Miesen, 39, Dawn’s younger sister. Dawn would have been 44 June 19. It could turn out “I didn’t get the answer that I wanted, but at least I made that step, I made an attempt,” Diane Mozino said. Dawn, a 1985 graduate of Marple Vo-Tech School and Devereux Day School, never confided to her mother about Hawkins calling her. “Something went wrong, but she didn’t think anything of it because she was a very trusting person,” she said. “Somebody knows. “The only way (she may get to question Hawkins) is if he goes to be executed, We can try one more time to see if he’ll tell us anything,” Mozino said. “And he may not.” Cathy Mozino Miesen, a mother of two sons aged 7 and 8, remembers her sister’s “love for life. “She enjoyed working; she was very proud of her accomplishments,” Miesen said. She also enjoyed spending time with her boyfriend, Dan Kolb, and loved animals and children. Dawn “trusted others,” she recalled. “She was very responsible, she never missed a day of work.” Dawn also enjoyed reading poetry and Nancy Drew mysteries, and kept a diary to plan her daily routine and to be organized. Her mother and sister said Dawn got a kick out of meeting sports personalities through Special Olympics events — she was an avid runner — and once met a former coach of the Eagles. “That was like the greatest thing in the whole world (to her),” Miesen said. Mozino pointed out that Dawn left her job at Paoli Hospital because her younger sister, Cathy, was in a motorcycle accident when she was 16. Dawn was needed at home to care for her sister. When Dawn suddenly vanished, “it was sort of like a twilight moment for me because I couldn’t grasp the fact that it actually happened,” Miesen said. She tried to figure out where “the missing link” was, why she didn’t come home, basically backtracking, checking the messages on her answering machine. “And then it was just really like frustration and anger because we had some idea of what we thought happened to her, but we had no way to really follow through,” Miesen said. Speaking on behalf of her father, Andrew Mozino, a Drexel Hill builder/developer, who was away, her stepmother and half-sister, Miesen said Dawn is “… still a very active part of our lives. “Her pictures are in all of our homes,” she said. “We still talk about her and remember funny stories. So I think it’s important that people remember who she was. And that it’s still an unsolved case.” A complex case “A lot of things complicated the case …” said retired Radnor Deputy Police Superintendent Lucky Leighton, who came up from southern Delaware to discuss the case with Sgts. Andy Block and Joseph Maguire. Once the family realized Dawn was missing, they initially notified the local police department in Radnor because they didn’t know where she was last seen. Her father reported her missing. Kolb, her boyfriend, had left a message on her answering machine asking where Dawn was and why she didn’t show up at the YMCA for Special Olympics practice the day she disappeared. Police had received an erroneous report she had gotten on the bus to travel to the Upper Main Line YMCA in Paoli to practice for Special Olympics, Leighton said. However, a bus driver on that route told police he didn’t see Dawn on the bus that afternoon. Police with the help of firefighters, and a helicopter flyover, conducted an exhaustive search in Montgomery, Delaware and Chester counties. Wooded areas, railroad tracks and storm sewers were searched, including the area around the Kmart store on Lancaster Avenue in Strafford, where she was also formerly employed and known to frequent. Any time police learned about the discovery of an unidentified body of a young woman in the Delaware Valley and nearby Delaware, they checked it out, ready to send dental records. “If he (Hawkins) had gotten her in the car saying, ‘I’ll drive you to the YMCA,’ there are a lot of wooded areas along the way, a lot of remote roads and areas that you can go to and (there) wouldn’t be any witnesses,” said Maguire, who visited Hawkins at Graterford Prison with Leighton several years ago with no success. “One of the problems that we had was that Hawkins had said he had given many people, the girls that work there, different rides to different places,” Leighton said. Police did find fibers in his car that were similar to Dawn’s uniform, “… but we couldn’t discount that she had been in the car at another time,” Leighton said. However, no incriminating bloodstains or other physical evidence was found, he said. “I think that Hawkins still remains our prime suspect,” Leighton said. “And I believe he was responsible for her disappearance.” Leighton firmly believes “it’s a homicide.” “If it weren’t for Thomas Hawkins maybe there would have been some speculation that she could have gone somewhere else, talked into doing something else,” Maguire said. “But since he’s the prime suspect and given his history now, we don’t really think there’s anything else other than him being responsible for her disappearance,” Maguire said. Even though Hawkins is still on death row and has had his execution stayed several times, he has outlasted the late Lower Merion Detective Sgt. Mark Keenan, Leighton said. “But Hawkins has outlasted him, so who knows how many more he’ll outlast,” Leighton said. Block cited the fact that DNA forensic technology wasn’t in common use by law enforcement at the time of Dawn’s disappearance. Hopefully, it will come in handy some day if there’s a break in the case, he said. Dawn’s mother usually finds some peace on Dawn’s birthday in June and on other occasions visiting a weeping cherry tree planted in her memory at Willows Park several years ago. Mozino’s biggest hope after the two decades Dawn has been missing is for someone “… to give us the information and just letting us know where she is. Where it ended. “That’s not going to tell us why, but at least it tells us where it ended,” she said. “It’s a cruel way to have to live. And we march on. Dawn would want it that way.” For the sake of her family and grandchildren, “it would be nice to say that at least we found some sort of a resting place” for Dawn, Mozino said. The family has a $5,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for her disappearance. Anyone with information is urged to call Radnor Police Sgts. Andy Block or Joe Maguire at 610-688-0500, the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division at 610-891-4700, or Montgomery County CID at 610-278-3339. |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Jun 12 2009, 02:38 PM Post #6 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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Posted on Tue, Jun. 9, 2009 Twenty years on, woman's disappearance remains mystery By Kathy Boccella Inquirer Staff Writer With a dream job at Bryn Mawr Hospital, hopes of a wedding, and a slew of gold medals from the Special Olympics, Dawn Mozino could not have been happier. Born with a learning disability, Dawn was proving at age 23 that she could take care of herself. At just 4-foot-10 and 100 pounds, she was a scrappy athlete who loved competing in track. And she and her boyfriend were happily planning a future together. "She loved her job. She had her own bank account, her own phone. Dawn was in a place where, if she said she wanted to move out into her own apartment, she was ready," said her mother, Diane Mozino, who lived with her two daughters in Wayne. Dawn never got a chance to show the world how independent she had become. On May 22, 1989, the upbeat young woman left work at 3:30 p.m. as usual, eager to get to track practice at the Upper Main Line YMCA. She walked two blocks to Lancaster and Bryn Mawr Avenues to catch the bus. And then she disappeared. Dawn always let her family know her whereabouts, even if she was visiting a friend's house across the street. "If she said she was going to be home by 5, she was home by 5," said her younger sister, Cathy Mozino-Miesen, 39, a teacher who has two children, 7 and 8, and lives in Wayne. After graduating from Devereux Day School and Marple Newtown Vo-Tech, Dawn got a job delivering meals to patients at Paoli Memorial Hospital. In 1986, her sister nearly lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and Dawn quit her job to help take care of her. "We had a typical sister relationship, love-hate. We'd scratch and fight and then get along beautifully," said Mozino-Miesen. At the same time, Dawn was racking up medals as a long-distance runner in the Special Olympics. Twice a year she would compete at events at Pennsylvania State University and Villanova University. "She had so many medals. That was her pride and joy," recalled her father, Andrew Mozino, a retired real estate consultant who is divorced from Dawn's mother and lives in Bryn Mawr. Her difficulties with memory and attention didn't stop her from reading and writing poetry and memorizing the local bus and train schedules. "If you were having a conversation with her, you wouldn't know she had a learning disability," said her father. It was through Special Olympics that Dawn met Dan Kolb, who also had developmental problems. After dating for about four years, they were inching toward living together and even attended marriage counseling at United Methodist Church in Wayne, said her mother. "They would have been fine," she said, "but they had to take things slow." With her sister on the mend, Dawn landed a job as a dietary aide at Bryn Mawr Hospital in 1987. Her supervisors said she was a model employee who loved chatting with patients, according to her family. "She was never late, never missed a day. She was up before the sun came out and out the door," said her sister. On the day Dawn vanished, her mother sat on the front porch waiting to see her curly haired, red-headed daughter come home from work. After a while she asked Cathy if she knew where Dawn was. Twenty years on, woman's disappearance remains mystery They went to her room and checked her answering machine. That's when panic set in - Dawn's boyfriend had left several messages asking why she wasn't at track practice. "If she wasn't with us, she was with Dan," said Diane Mozino. The two women drove to Bryn Mawr Hospital to look for her, but the guards and other employees hadn't seen her leave that day. Shortly afterward, they called police. Mozino doesn't remember much about those frantic days. "The bottom dropped out of my whole life," she said. She quit her job at a party store and stayed home to wait for a call or tip about her missing daughter. Meanwhile, friends distributed pictures while investigators searched ponds and parks. Weeks later, police got what seemed like a break: A coworker said she saw Dawn get into someone's car at the bus stop that day. The driver was Thomas Hawkins, 27 at the time, a convicted murderer who served six years of a 15-year sentence for the 1980 murder of Karen Stubbs, 15, of Reading, who was found strangled and stabbed in the throat in her dormitory room at Pine Forge Academy in Berks County. Hawkins had worked with Dawn at Paoli Hospital. Diane Mozino remembers him coming to her house once to take Dawn to work but says they weren't really friends. Mozino knew nothing of his criminal background. However, police later told her that Hawkins had given her daughter rides before, sometimes picking her up at bus stops. Hawkins denied giving Dawn a ride that day. Police found some fibers in his car that may have come from her uniform, but there was nothing else to link him to the case, said Bruce L. Castor Jr., the former Montgomery County district attorney. "Just seeing them together absent any other evidence is not enough," especially without a body, he said. On June 4, two weeks after Dawn vanished, Hawkins sexually assaulted and killed his niece, Andrea Thomas, at his parents' home in West Pottsgrove Township. He was convicted in 1990, but the state Supreme Court reversed the judgment on the grounds that he was inadequately represented at the trial and the judge's charges to the jury were inappropriate. In 1994, he was retried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He is now on death row in Graterford Prison. Castor, who tried both cases with Dawn's mother in the audience, is convinced Hawkins killed Dawn. "Since he murdered someone else, the likelihood that it is a coincidence that he was the last person seen with Dawn is remote," he said. At the time, Castor offered to rescind Hawkins' death sentence if he agreed to tell authorities what he knew about Mozino's disappearance, a deal the current district attorney, Risa Vetri Ferman, said was still on the table. Hawkins rejected the offer and has denied any role in the case. "Ultimately I think when they have him strapped on the table with tubes running in him, then he'll want to deal," Castor, now a Montgomery County commissioner, said. Twenty years on, woman's disappearance remains mystery But that is unlikely, since the only executions in Pennsylvania since 1962 have been voluntary. "I do think the person responsible for her disappearance and probable death is on death row, so I take some measure of comfort in that," he said. It's harder for Dawn's family. On May 22, relatives gathered at a weeping cherry tree planted in her memory at the Willows Park in Villanova, as they do for her birthday and other milestones. She is present in their lives, in the pictures scattered through their homes and the stories they tell. And Kolb, who works at the YMCA, still calls Diane Mozino every night. "He's gotten beyond it, but a part of him never left us," she said. For her to move forward, she needs to find her daughter and to give her a proper burial. "Like anybody else, she deserves respect. If [Hawkins] gets the death penalty, his family has the respect of burying him," she said. "And we're left with nothing." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Kathy Boccella at 610-313-8123 or kboccella@phillynews.com. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/47...html?page=1&c=y |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| oldies4mari2004 | Jun 25 2010, 04:34 PM Post #7 |
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Unregistered
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7:56 PM Jul 10