July 15, 2002 marked 25 long years of a living nightmare for 69-year-old Milton Nerenberg and his family.
On that day in 1977 his middle child, Audrey Lyn, disappeared at the age of 18 from her Flatbush neighborhood and has not been heard from since.
Nerenberg's never-ending search has not yielded any conclusive evidence as to the whereabouts of his dark-haired daughter, who would be 43 years old today. Over the past 25 years, Brooklyn has changed, but Nerenberg's life has been put on hold.
The summer of 1977 is stamped with the murderous spree of "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz and the New York City blackouts. The infamous Mafia killers headquartered at the Gemini Lounge, close to the family's former neighborhood of Canarsie, have either been locked up or buried.
But still Nerenberg, who has since retired to Florida, wonders where the time has gone.
Nerenberg has spent most of the past quarter century becoming a skilled detective by his own right. He has spent hours combing Brooklyn beaches, filtering out crank calls, consulting with countless law enforcement agencies, lobbying for stronger laws in Washington and befriending families of missing and murdered children.
Working with parents in similar situations, Nerenberg mails posters of Audrey to the parents of missing kids to post in their hometowns, and does the same for them.
No suspects have ever been brought up on charges involving Audrey's disappearance, but Nerenberg is closely watching a few of his own with the New York City Missing- Persons Squad as they try to unravel the mystery of a missing girl."
The case is moving along just a little tiny bit but I say every little bit helps," Nerenberg said.
Audrey's Story
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July 15, 1977 was muggy and hot. Audrey Lyn Nerenberg, a thin brunette, walked out of her Ryder Street home and down Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway.
She wore bleached cut-off jean shorts, a blue tube top and clear plastic sandals, and carried a small brown purse with enough money to buy a $2 pack of cigarettes.
She never came back.
It has now been 25 years since Milton Nerenberg, his wife Evelyn and two children Steven and Brenda, last heard Audrey's voice.
When Audrey was 16 she developed hebephrenic schizophrenia, a condition which can dramatically affect personality by causing hallucinations as well as irresponsible and unpredictable behavior.
Her father insists that she was "getting better" by 1977 and the records of Dr. Valentine Wolf, who Audrey was referred to in October 1975, show the girl was released from Brooklyn State Hospital in September 1976, prescribed anti-psychotic drugs and sent home.
The teenager, who liked shopping at Kings Plaza, had sometimes gotten lost close to home but always had the presence of mind to call her father for help. Never did her family expect her to lose her way for good.
Did Audrey simply become confused and wander off, ending up as a Jane Doe lying alone in a nearby hospital? Did she run away and begin a new life, forgetting her loving family altogether?
Or, did the unthinkable happen - was Audrey Nerenberg kidnapped?
The day of her disappearance, Nerenberg received a chilling phone call to his Flatbush home from a self-professed kidnapper who said he had Audrey.
"Get as much money as you can and I'll call back," the caller told Nerenberg before slamming down the phone.
The nervous father quickly contacted the FBI, who sent four far from inconspicuous agents running up the family's Ryder Street steps.
The G-men, decked out in dark pinstripe suits, waited in the Nerenberg's living room for the call-back from the kidnapper for three hours. When the phone did not ring, they abruptly labeled the call "a fluke" and abandoned the case. They never even stepped foot into Audrey's bedroom, recalls Nerenberg.
He speculates that if Audrey was kidnapped, her assailant could have been a friend or neighbor and may have seen the FBI agents arrive.
In August, 1982, a Kings Highway resident and friend of Audrey's younger brother was arrested for sexually attacking a woman at knife point in her Upper East Side apartment. He was convicted, served almost 20 years and was recently released from Elmira State Prison.
Also under investigation is the site of a former ice cream shop on Flatbush Avenue where Audrey claimed to have been molested by an employee one year prior to her disappearance. A large, patched up hole in the basement wall of the store is being investigated.
The circumstances surrounding Audrey's disappearance made her case less likely to be carefully scrutinized by 1970s law enforcement. And today, the Missing Persons Squad must trace stale clues left over from the past two decades in order to retrace Audrey's last known foot steps.
Although she was ill, the missing 18-year-old was not searched for the way a missing 8 year-old would have been. As a missing adult, she was considered nothing more than another runaway.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was not even founded until 1984, and organizations for missing adults arose years later.
"There are certainly not as many resources for [missing]adults, but there are one or two organizations out there," said Janine Lucas of the NCMEC.
But Audrey's father is not satisfied with the smaller, lesser known organizations geared at finding missing adults. Instead, he continues to work on a bill called the "Audrey Nerenberg Act."
On April 10, 2002, Florida Congresswoman Karen Thurman introduced H. R. 4162, also known as the Audrey Nerenberg Act, into the House of Representatives. The act seeks to amend the Missing Children's Assistance Act to include adults determined to have a mental capacity of a child under 18 years old. Nerenberg put pressure on Congresswoman Thurman to get the bill reinstated after it's original version died earlier this year - and he succeeded.
If passed, the act would allow adults deemed to have the mentality of a child, much like Audrey, to be listed in the national data base for Missing and Exploited Children. Only photos of those included in the database are put on missing posters in Walmart stores around the country and mailed out on postcards door-to-door.
"These are children - they're medically certified as children, they belong with the children," Nerenberg said.
If the bill is not passed this session, it will be yet another barrier in Nerenberg's less than lucky search.
In the meantime, her father is coming to grips with the possibility that someone hurt his teenage daughter. "Since no one has ever came forward I'm starting to think that somebody must have harmed her," he said.
Today Audrey Lyn Nerenberg would be 43 years old. Her hair would still be dark wavy hair, possibly with the addition of a few strands of gray scattered throughout. The freckles on her cheeks and hands would remain and, as well as the tiny gap between her two front teeth
Although Audrey is just a memory in the minds of those who love her, she is not alone.
Her father is flanked by concerned citizens, retired detectives and parents of missing kids who have come upon his website dedicated to Audrey. With an army of support behind him, Nerenberg vows to continue to cut through countless obstacles while he clings to any hope he may have left after 25 sorrowful years.
If you have any information on the disappearance of Audrey Lyn Nerenberg please call The NYC Missing Persons Squad at 212-473-2042. There is a $10,000 reward offered for accurate information leading to the whereabouts of Audrey, living or deceased.
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If you have any information on the where abouts of Audrey Nerenberg Please contact Private Investigator Richard Ingraham contact info is below.
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