Ten-year-old Mary Ann Verdecchia vanished from her Bloomfield neighborhood in Pittsburgh on June 7, 1962. It was the last half-day of school; after changing from her uniform into a white blouse and red shorts she left about 12:30 p.m. to run an errand for a woman at the Martinique Apartments on Baum Boulevard. The last confirmed sighting was at 2:45 p.m. as she re-entered that apartment complex. Family members began searching that evening and reported her missing at 10:30 p.m., but Mary Ann was never seen again.

Investigators treated the case as suspicious. Mary Ann’s parents were located and cleared early on. Searchers found a piece of jewelry near the Highland Park Zoo a few days later, but it could not be definitively tied to her. The investigation remained active for months, then went cold. In 1991 a man said he had witnessed a Presbyterian minister molest and kill a young girl in 1962; Mary Ann was the only girl missing in that area then, but the account could not be confirmed and no charges followed.

Mary Ann had lived with her aunt for five years after her parents separated and was described as a lonely child who often wandered the neighborhood.