Carmen Vargas was 29 when she disappeared from her East Harlem neighborhood in late summer 1989. A friend later said they saw her get into a dark car with an unknown man; her family put up posters and searched while hope faded into dread.

On September 11, 1989 a passerby on the Meadowbrook Parkway in Freeport, Long Island, found a woman’s body. It was Carmen, wearing the same gray tank top and miniskirt she had on the night she vanished. A towel covered her face, a rope was wound around her neck, and her ankles were bound with a cord. Because of the condition of her remains, authorities could not determine if she had been sexually assaulted. Her death was ruled a homicide.

The case went cold for decades despite periodic attention, including a state cold-case campaign. In 2023 investigators re-examined unsolved killings after the arrest of Rex Heuermann in the Gilgo Beach cases; Heuermann was reported to have lived and worked in the Freeport area around the time of Carmen’s death and her bindings were noted as similar to the Gilgo Beach victims. Heuermann has not been charged in Carmen’s murder and the investigation remains open and ongoing.

Did anyone in East Harlem or Freeport know Carmen’s routine or recall seeing a dark car in the days before September 11, 1989?