Brenda Cecelia Crowley was 15 when she disappeared from Staten Island, New York, in the late winter of 1979; reports give dates ranging from March 1, 1979, to February or March 1980. She was one of eight children in a troubled household and was the only sibling who never returned after running away. Brenda was known to spend time in Tompkinsville, Stapleton and Mariner’s Harbor and had been enrolled in special education at Curtis High School but stopped attending, being marked absent without leave in February 1980.

Distinctive features included a slight cross in her left eye and a small scar on her nose; her eye color is recorded as green or hazel, sometimes appearing brown. Family circumstances were difficult: her mother and stepfather reportedly struggled with alcoholism and her biological father was incarcerated around the time Brenda vanished. No official missing persons report appears to have been filed at the time; a formal report was not submitted to the NYPD Missing Persons Squad until the summer of 2007. A family member later alleged in 2008 that Brenda had been murdered and buried in a backyard in East Islip; an excavation there recovered only animal bones. The case remains an active investigation with key timeline gaps and unanswered questions.

If anyone knew Brenda, the places she spent time, or has information that could clarify when and where she was last seen, please come forward.