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A stripper-turned-investigative reporter is missing and some think the disappearance is tied to the Russian Mafia.
CASE DETAILS On July 16, 1996, Susan Walsh of Nutley, New Jersey, was in a hurry. She dropped off her son, David, with her estranged husband. She said she needed to make some phone calls and run a few errands. But Susan never returned. Police believe Susan Walsh simply chose to disappear. Others fear she may have met an untimely end.  She was proud of her work in the book Susan grew up in a broken home. By most accounts, it was a bitter childhood. Still, Susan dreamed of being a poet. By the time she turned 20, she was far from her dream. She was, instead, a substance abuser supporting herself as a stripper. Still, she kept her hopes alive, using her dancing tips to pay her way through college. By the time she graduated in 1988, she’d traded stripping for a writing career. According to Susan’s friend, Melissa Hines, Susan had been sober for over four years when she got married and became a devoted mother.
Eventually, she and her husband separated. Her writing jobs didn’t pay enough to support her son. According to journalist James Ridgeway, she went back to stripping, unable to resist the easy money:
 Did Susan leave on her own Eventually, Susan landed an internship at New York’s alternative newspaper, The Village Voice. Because of her background as a stripper, she was assigned to research the sex industry. She soon turned up a hot story: Russian mobsters in New Jersey were allegedly forcing young immigrant women to work like slaves in strip clubs. James Ridgeway described Susan as dogged in her work:
 Her lifestyle may have played a part Susan earned praise for her Russian mob article, but she also received serious threats when it was published. But that didn’t stop her from taking another dark assignment, this time investigating vampire nightclubs. These clubs attracted kids who called themselves “Goths.” They were known for their outrageous black outfits. But some took it further, even drinking real blood. Susan was attracted to the vampire world. She even started dating a man who claimed to be one of the undead. According to James Ridgeway, Susan wrote a detailed article, but she seemed to lose her journalistic objectivity:
 Mobsters may have been involved To Susan’s disappointment, The Village Voice never ran her vampire story. She went back to dancing full time. In a documentary made by a friend, Susan talked about the toll stripping had taken on her life:
Filmmaker Jill Morley was with Susan two days before she disappeared:
Forty-eight hours after Jill last saw her, Susan disappeared. Did she collapse because of her depression and poor health? Or was she out there somewhere, waiting for help? Susan’s friends had to consider darker theories. James Ridgeway said he believed Susan had become addicted to drugs:
Det. John Rhein of the Nutley, New Jersey Police Department, said that the police have a completely different theory:
A number of people, including an old friend, Melissa Hines, told the police that they saw Susan after she disappeared, getting into a limousine:
Det. Rhein followed up on Melissa’s information:
Melissa believes that if Susan is alive, she may be deliberately hiding out:
Floyd Merchant is Susan’s father:
Melissa Hines believes someone was following Susan:
Who was it that could have been following Susan? No one knows. But now, years after she vanished, police believe she was murdered and the case remains open. Watch this case now on Amazon Prime in season nine with Robert Stack and in season four with Dennis Farina. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. Various seasons available now on Hulu. SUBMIT A TIP |
Anonymous
With no one seeing her leave the apartment complex I wouldn’t even search outside of it. It had to have been someone in that building. The evidence may have have left the building. But I don’t think see left it alive. Some cadaver dogs would have been helpful.
Sonny
IMO – her ex-husband did it. The friend stopped by & all the windows & doors locked in the heat of summer & they were always open. Then her ex came back with her son from Staples. The ex did it – the cops have never searched or sprayed luminal in his basement apartment. All of her stuff (purse, ID, etc) left in her apartment. No one leaves without that stuff. He killed her & Nutley Cops will not do their job. All the sightings are just red herrings. We all have others who look like us. She’s rolled up on a carpet & dumped. Cops never searched for her in any of those areas. Cops blew this one big time when they didn’t luminol her ex’s apartment. A guy worked with her ex’s younger brother & he says his brother (her ex killed her with a frying pan) & dumped her in a swamp area. Butler Cops should be ashamed of themselves as should the City Council. Not working with PIs that her father hired tells us the story. They didn’t want to find her. All this other stuff about drugs, depression & Russian Nafua are complete BS. The EX did it!!
Anonymous
I believe you are absolutely correct. But in defense of the police department, I can’t blame them for not wanting to investigate the Russian mafia, or the shady side of the adult entertainment industry. That would be a wild goose chase. They have to follow every lead. And no leads where pointing at the family. Is it unusual to drop someone off in the same building. (Her husband lived right next to her.) The sightings where most likely mistaken identity. Her hair would have not stayed blonde unless she kept up with it. She was probably not seen at her regular places doing that. It looks like an inside job. I’m not sure if she even drove her vehicle at all that day. A second person possibly relocated it to throw off detectives. (Happens all the time. But requires an accomplice.)
Shari
This is what happened. I “see” the same thing in my mind.
Bee
Maybe she went looking for Sarah Palin’s list of newspapers.
Greg c
Wow. I went to school with her son at Barnstable Academy in Franklin Lakes NJ in 1999/2000. I hope he’s well.
Jamie
What is her relation to joe Walsh the singer?
Vinnie
Ex-brother-in-law; her estranged husband Mark is Joe’s brother.
Anonymous
That explains why Mark is so overlooked.
Wayne
i viewed this case last night ,as i live in South Africa i do not know the status of the case other than what i have been following . The following might be of help: A)Does the father and son still stay in the same abode , if they have moved ,how long after Susan went missing ? . B)Was the month of July missing due to the fact that it had been planned and did not want to be found and not leave evidence / . C) are these “club s ” raided on a regular basis , where ever they maybe ? .Maybe she was “offered ” a better opportunity as a reporter else where .D) Why is the Mother not mentioned in the case ? . E) She has cousin s in Florida , without them knowing , did she not make for Florida and was harmed in anyway on route ? . F ) Did she ever mention a special place to go to unwind
Isolated , and was taken advantage of ? . Melissa said that she think s that she was been followed while driving with Susan in the car , did she ever report this was she at any stage ever harassed as , well as any of Susan s other friend s and collegues ? . Greeting s From South Africa Wayne .
Anonymous
A) Everything was in that building. Her residence was just above his residence on another floor. B) That would go under evidence collecting. It could have been misplaced by authorities. It is also possible it was removed to cover a crime scene. (The scene is screaming of a cover up.) C) The clubs are regularly monitored by local law enforcement agencies and sometimes the FBI. They do regular stings. New Jersey is the wrong place to engage in illegal activity. New York on the other hand is just across the harbor. However nothing is perfect. Shady things have always been going on even in New Jersey. D) no public information is available for the mother. You would need a security clearance to have government access to that. I don’t have that. And even if I did I would get in trouble releasing that information. E) That information of Florida would have been known. It is very difficult to go from New Jersey to Florida without paying a toll. Her wallet was left at her residence. So without paying cash, she would have been recorded. Greyhound, airports and the trains also keep good records. If it was an older case that would be a possibility. But in the 1990s they kept very good records. F) I’m sure she had several places to go. And the way guys followed her, I’m sure there would have been more than one witness. We are not looking for a pen. She was an attractive lady that stood out. As soon as she entered a room you noticed her. She was not even seen leaving the building. (Even by suspects that probably should have noted they saw her leaving.)
Anonymous
Another thing I forgot to mention is they could still have read what was wrote on the calendar using an imprint experiment.
Anonymous
I watched thi episode alot , I try to watch it as often as possible.When they said ,” Susan wrote for the Village Voice paper , I thought it to be nice,because lots of sweet people live in the Grenich Village area. But recently I found a website that explained that she wrote for Screw newspaper starting since around 1981 and they said she was really impressing the owner of the Screw paper, about a year before she dissapeared. How come they never mention this, they just say “She was a stripper, like if she is wacko? I feel more worried after I read this web story, is it really true, too?
village
SassyChick
Anyone try searching for her on social media like facebook? They’ve found lots of missing persons and people with warrants using social media. Maybe they might find something there? I found an individual that is the same age Susan would be today but without age progressed photo I can’t say whether or not it’s her. They have similar noses and cheek bones though.
Anonymous
They have image searches on Google. You just show a picture and it will show you where on the internet it is. It is becoming more public. But law enforcement has had that technology for years. It has all the ramnents of a without a trace formation. (I call those covered up crime scenes.)
kellie
The husband still lives in the same house but in susans apt now there was a witness that worked at the pizza place across from the pay phone an said he saw her walk back into her apt but if u see the pizza place an where her apt is theres no way being inside the pizza place u can see someone walking back into the bld i think they should have questioned him more
Anonymous
She was an attractive lady. Many guys would watch her from any angle they could look. Missing women are very difficult to investigate. I’m surprised more people haven’t noticed her if she did go out that day.
Anonymous
I saw this show again and I do believe her ex husband did it
Geri
I just watched it again tonight, too, and I agree with you. Her best friend said that whatever happened to her happened in that house, plus the ex will no longer cooperate with the cops. He did it!
Anonymous
That is a very tangible possibility. Why not just leave the kid in the building if she was going to be right back? Why wake up the husband that you are already having drama with? And the husband is a good person also. She was a handful to deal with. She probably snapped on him and pushed him too far. (Bi polar medicine and alcohol are not a good combination. Especially Xanax.)
Frank
I remember when I saw one episode of Susan W. I remember they gave her address when she was very young , some street , near Longport Dr. in Wayne , NJ.I was scared , because,it is very close to my nieghborhood. They kept saying the Russian Mafia killed her and I thought that was very strange, because a fellow student lived close by was Russian and he always wore a Russian sickle belt buckle to school and he seemed kind of poor, so I just figured he couldn’t afford to buy a new one. He wasn’t a troublemaker,and he got good grades, but he wore that belt buckle all through school ever year and sometimes people would question him about it ,mockingly. I think Susan was in the same grade as his sister,maybe they were even friends. Another wierd, strange thing is that a female student there, became an adult film star, and she lived close to Susan’s house ,too. Anyway I wondered if they were friends, maybe that’s how she became a stipper and why people are quick to believethe Russin Mafia has some thing to do with her dissapearence, perhaps they are really too scared to question her husband? Maybe Susan was an alcoholic and ran off to be with the adult film star,who actually quit the buisnee 2 years befre Susan’s dissapearence, maybe they used drugs together in High School, and are really in love?
Sam Frank
I have followed this case for years. I was born and raised in Nutley and still reside there. I never knew Susan Walsh but I remember when this happened. I was told a very interesting story about this case by the brother of her ex husband Mark. Several years after her disappearance I met Mark’s brother when he came to work for the same company I was working for. We struck up a friendship that continued for years until we lost touch after we both left that company. I asked him what he thought happened to Susan and he told me he knew exactly what happened to her. This is what he told me:
Mark and Susan were separated and Susan was living with their son David in the apartment upstairs while Mark was living in one room in the basement. All Mark had was a bed, a dresser, a telephone and his few personal belongings. Susan would come down and use his phone frequently but he would not allow her to use it to call her boyfriends or her drug dealers. In exchange for using the telephone, she would allow him upstairs to use the kitchen to cook his meals. The day of her disappearance they had a huge argument about her using the phone so she went across the street to use the pay phone. When she returned from using the pay phone she did not go to her apartment, she went to the basement where she and Mark continued fighting. In a fit of rage he grabbed a frying pan and smashed her across the head with it, killing her. It was not intentional but nonetheless it was murder. He hid the body in his basement room and once her boyfriend had gone to work he took David to Staples. Later that night or early the next morning he took the body to a reservation where he was known to hike and disposed of the body. He returned and later that day reported her missing.
He also told me that Mark did not have much money and when he visited his brother about a week before the disappearance Mark had shown him the new frying pan he had just bought and how expensive it was. When my friend went to see his brother after Susan disappeared he noticed the frying pan was gone. When he questioned Mark about it mark just said he must have misplaced it. He also told me that Mark removed the page from the calendar because there was something written on it he didn’t want the cops to see. I didn’t know what to make of his story but I told him he should go to the police if he was so sure that Mark had done it. He said he did go to the Nutley PD and sat with a detective and told him everything. The detective said they would investigate and they would be in touch, but he never heard a word from them. He said he called several times to see how the investigation was going but they just kept telling him they were still checking it out and would contact him. He finally gave up after not hearing anything. He said his brother became distant and remote from the rest of the family and concentrated on raising his son David.
I don’t know if any of this is true and I’m not accusing Mark or anyone else of anything. This is the story his brother told me and he seems to believe it. I’ve never met Mark or his son but I find this theory pretty intriguing. I also wonder why the Nutley PD did not follow up. Or if they did maybe it was all a lie. One more fact about this story that is pretty interesting is that Mark Walsh and my friend are the younger brothers of Joe Walsh, the rock star. I’ve never seen that mentioned in any of the stories I’ve read about Susan Walsh.
Scott
I’ve been fascinated by this case for years as well, and always wondered why police were so quick to rule out her husband. Have you considered taking this information to the police? I really think you should. It seems quite believable to me. All of the vampire culture mumbo jumbo and mafia stuff is more than likely untrue. Occam’s razor 101. I wouldn’t be surprised if what happened is precisely what you’ve described.
Cheryl
Wow, this makes alot of sense. Usually the last person to see someone alive is thoroughly investigated. I feel in my heart it was the ex husband. The police dropped the ball on this case. Atleast the brother tried, and atleast he put the truth out there. I wonder if the son witnessed or remembers anything. Thank you for sharing, I hope the son is safe.
Nevermind
I have seen a woman in Phoenix Arizona who could pass as her twin. She likes meth and is dating my cousin, everything is secretive, she disappears for days and he can never depend on her to show up for any family get togethers. He had her picture on his fb page but I don’t see it now please contact me for more information.
Christopher mohan
Need more information regarding ur comments maybe it could help find her. 8622792834 Chris text me
Bill Blaski
Can you provide an update please?
unsolved
Hi Bill – we do not currently have any new information regarding this case, but if and when we do we will be sure to update it above. Thank you.
whomever
just what drug was she addicted to ? they are very vague about it — just saying she took substances. Well, there’s a big difference between valium, pot, etc, and, say heroin…..
Nevermind
Meth is what she liked it said on the tv show disappeared
Anonymous
Did investigators ever try to run finger prints on the calendar that was missing the month she disappeared?
Joe Kulik
Wiki says Susan got her BA from Paterson Univ/NJ ( with10k students) & had almost completed her MA at NYU when she disappeared. So how is a lady with these credentials “forced” to be a stripper? Aside from her formal education, the social contacts she made at these schools should’ve easily gotten her a better job. Looks to me like Susan was suffering from SEVERE Low Self Esteem as well. It is this SEVERE Low Self Esteem that probably got Susan “set up” to get murdered too. Think about it. She was 46 & still stripping when she “disappeared”. How many 40+ strippers have YOU ever heard of?? … joseph.kulik.919@gmail.com
Melissa
She was 36 and she looked younger also many strippers put themselves through school with that job to finance it.
Frank
I remember seeing an old unsolved mysteries show about 20 years ago, and they mentioned that Susan was originally born from Wayne,nj. they showed a kindergarten photo of her and even mentioned the street she lived on and her father talked a while. I never really saw that episode again, and it seemed as if I was dreaming becauase I live close to that area. I dont ever seeing her though,she is older. But it seems scary though because a famous female porno star lived less then a half mile away. I look on other web sites and it never says she was born on Wayne, NJ,was I just imagining this? Thank You.
J.
To the person who says they found her in NC please contact the police in Nutley NJ.
Anonymous
She is on the Outer Banks of NC someone please help I dont know how to report this, she is a cat lady and she looks identical and is same age and still goes by Susan Walsh. She is here!
Anonymous
Omg! I hope to God that’s true! Her story on disappeared was heartbreaking and She seemed like such an amazing person who just had a hard time finding a job that paid enough money to support her child. That does sound possible too because I’m sure dancing and being around some of the slime balls who patronize the strip clubs is hard and having to listen to morons treat you like a piece of meat day after day must be extremely difficult and I’m certain it damages some of the dancers self esteem and could create mental disorders.
Christopher mohan
Well contact nutley police
Anonymous
What is to say she didn’t go to the mental health facility. The facilities aren’t allowed to release information about if someone is there or not.
Valerie M.
How long did it take for anyone to alert the police that she was missing? It seems to me that within a day or two they should have been notified, but I think I read that it was 4 week! If it was 4 weeks..hmmm..makes me wonder why her ex didn’t notify police sooner…and nothing was missing..things you would take if you were going to disappear. No, she is no longer alive….I don’t buy that and I think the police put on blinders because of who she was and what others said about her…misleading things..thats why police need to investigate with an open mind. Sadly for Susan they did not.
Bill G
I was one of two private detectives that investigated this case. We never felt that she ran away. The Essex County Prosecutors Office advised Nutley P D to not cooperate with us because they feared that it would turn into a homicide investigation. I guess that they were afraid of us muddying the waters? We had our own theory but no defining proof. She would have never left her son.
malissa
I pray for susan safe return may God bless her where ever she is
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annistaisa
I am not usually interested in cases like this. For some reason, i remember the original new reports as clear as day. I was a Goth at the time. To this day, her case has as importance in my subcouncious mind.I think there is more to this case then meets the eye. When i had a Goth band in the late 1990’s I met a ruff looking blond woman. She was older than me. She was very high and depressed. she was a smoker. There was a man with dark interest with her. He was one of the people who think they are undead. She acted like a victom of kidnappping. You can tell. They are careful at what they say and parionoid of the world around them. She was scared of what this dark man could do. So was i , so i left them alone. I always wondered about that encounter. It was in Chicago. I never told anybody about the encounter. I wote about it in my novels i now write. it was just very strange, and i always thought the two were related.
AJ
Has anyone considered this? I was looking through the doenetwork and came across from this: right age and time of death https://identifyus.org/cases/full_report/6118
Heather
The bra size says 38c…in the documentary I seen she was pretty flat chested, likely an A. S
Hank118
That is a very close match and worth the police comparing to Susan Walsh!
charmaine
Omg is she still missing I hope they find her for her safe return