On June 7, 1962, 10-year-old Mary Ann Verdecchia left her aunt’s home in Bloomfield, Pittsburgh, after a half-day at Immaculate Conception School, changed into a white blouse and red shorts, and went out about 12:30 p.m. She visited a former neighbor at the Martinique Apartments on Baum Boulevard and was asked to buy cat food; she was reportedly last seen re-entering that apartment building about 2:45 p.m. When she did not return for dinner at 6:00 p.m., relatives searched and then contacted police at 10:30 p.m. A piece of jewelry thought to be hers was later found near the Highland Park Zoo entrance, but searches produced no other evidence linking it to her disappearance.

Investigators conducted an exhaustive probe, including polygraphing and clearing her parents. The Martinique Apartments had been linked to another unsolved disappearance, Marcella Krulce, three years earlier, but no official connection was made. In 1991 a man said he had, as a nine-year-old in 1962, seen a Presbyterian minister molest and kill a girl he believed was Mary Ann; that claim was never confirmed and no charges were filed.

Mary Ann’s disappearance remains open and unresolved. If anyone knew Mary Ann, her routes that day, or has information about the Martinique Apartments in 1962, please come forward.