Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Patricia Viola

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Just before Valentine’s Day in 2001 a New Jersey housewife goes missing. For almost a decade her case remains unsolved until a bizarre connection is made to a clue that washed ashore years before.  For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-patricia-viola/

Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett. And the story I have for you today takes place in a quiet town outside of New York City away from the hustle and bustle of city life. A beloved wife and mother vanishes, seemingly into thin air, leaving her friends and family wondering where she could have gone and why she left in the first place. Her disappearance sends shockwaves through the community and over a decade passes before a tragic discovery leaves everyone with more questions than answers. This is the story of Patricia Viola.

It's 4.30pm on February 13th, 2001, and 40-year-old Jim Viola is arriving home from work. He and his family live on a quiet street in Bogota, New Jersey, and as Jim walks up to the door, he's expecting another normal night with his family. Since it's the day before Valentine's Day, Jim had actually left work early to pick up some gifts for Pat before he headed home, so he walks up to the house trying to balance his briefcase, those wrapped presents in one hand while opening the door with the other. Once he gets inside, he's expecting to see Pat to be there like always during this time of day.

But instead, he's struck by something odd. The house alarm is beeping, signaling that it had been activated. It's one of those alarms that gives you around 20 or 30 seconds to punch in the code before it notifies the security company. So, Jim immediately puts everything down, rushes to the keypad to enter the code, all while thinking, like, where is Pat? Because the Violas don't usually keep the alarm set while they're in the house. They only set it either when they leave or when they go to sleep.

And again, Pat is almost always there when Jim gets home. So the alarm being set in general already indicates that Pat isn't home, which is out of the ordinary. Exactly. According to a disappeared episode that aired back in 2011 titled Missing Valentine, Pat and her family all have very consistent schedules. And Pat's routine for the entirety of their marriage always included her being home when Jim got off work.

So this is super strange in his mind, but he doesn't jump to the worst. Once Jim enters the code and disarms the security system, he turns and notices something else kind of out of place. The key that they usually keep left in the deadbolt of their back door is laying on the kitchen table. Once again, this is weird. So out of curiosity, he goes to check if Pat's coat and purse are where she usually leaves them.

Now, her coat is gone, but her purse is still there with her ID, her cell phone keys, and concerningly her epilepsy medication. And is her epilepsy pretty severe? Yes, actually, Pat had been diagnosed with epilepsy at 12 years old, and she takes two medications throughout the course of the day in order to prevent seizures. And really, it was so bad that according to that disappeared episode, Pat had her driver's license suspended a few months prior as a result of a really bad grand mal seizure that landed her in the hospital.

Oh, yeah, that sounds really serious. Yeah, I mean, obviously, she ended up recovering, but the doctor told her not to drive for several months afterwards. So now finding this medication is extra important because when Jim finds it is almost five o'clock and Pat is due to take her evening meds really soon. So the fact that she left without them is enough to make Jim start to feel uneasy. I mean, is it possible that she just stepped out to run to the store real quick and would be back soon?

I mean, you said she left most of her personal belongings in the house. I mean, she could have just taken some cash and walked to a convenience store nearby, right? Well, that's what Jim's hoping for right now. I mean, you know, she's a 42-year-old woman. She can handle herself. But as the minutes and hours come and go, that uneasy feeling that he has starts to just build.

So just to be safe and put his mind to ease, he starts to call around a family and friends. But phone call after phone call turns up no clues as to where she might be. Box 5 reported that Jim even goes out and drives the routes where she might have gone with his high beams on, searching for any sign of her, but he comes back with nothing. Now, he can sense in his gut that something is really wrong with this. She wouldn't just leave without telling anyone. So with no other lead for him to track down and now in full-blown panic mode, Jim calls the Bogota police at 11.58 p.m. to report his wife missing.

Two officers are dispatched immediately to the house, and they file an official report that evening. Wow, I'm honestly kind of surprised they didn't make him wait 24 or 48 hours before filing anything. Yeah, this is different than what we normally see, but I think that they're taking this so seriously because she's at high risk without her medication. Now, unfortunately, there's not much they can do that night since by the time they take the statement after midnight, but the police start working the case first thing the next

morning. As they start the investigation, the very first thing police try to do is nail down a timeline of events for the morning and afternoon of the 13th. Jim tells them that the family had an entirely normal morning. Everyone had been up on time, Jim got ready for work like he always did, he was out the door by 6.30, and when speaking to police, he said he remembers Pat seeming a little down or maybe sad, but it wasn't enough to make him even worry that something was wrong. She just seemed a little melancholy that morning.

Now they learned that the Violas had two kids, Christine, who's 13, and Michael, who just turned 10. And they left next to go to school, and then Pat left shortly after them at 8.30. And they're able to verify this because she set the alarm around 8.30 that morning like she was leaving. And from there, they're able to confirm that she did make it to her son's school where she worked as a volunteer librarian during the day. And did anyone at the school notice anything off while she's there?

No, not at all. According to information, Jim Viola would later post on patriciaviolamissing.homestead.com when law enforcement talks to other volunteers and staff at the school, a few of them say that she may have been a little quieter than usual, but there were like zero red flags for them. Volunteers confirm with the school that Pat left at 11.30, and they even tracked down a mailman who said that he waved to Pat on her way home at about 11.40. Once they begin searching Pat's home, police discover a message on the Viola's answering

machine from earlier that morning, and it's from Pat's mom. In this voicemail, her mom says that the Viola's security company had called her asking if everything was okay at Jim and Pat's house because apparently the alarm had been tripped. Wait, why did they call Pat's mom? Did they try to contact Jim and Pat first? So they did. It's protocol for them to call the homeowner's first to check if everything was okay. But Jim was at work, I guess couldn't take the call.

Pat was at school. She had a cell phone, but didn't really like keep it on or check it. So they weren't able to reach either of them. So they actually got in touch with their emergency contact, which in this case was Pat's mom. And then Pat's mom contacted them. Got it. That makes sense. Now, the security company also contacted the police who did send an officer to the home

to check for signs of a break-in, but upon not seeing anything that would indicate that something bad had happened, there were like no broken windows, no open doors, nothing. They just left. Okay. Is it possible that someone was in the house and they just didn't see like maybe someone had picked a lock on their door or something? So I don't know. This is like honestly my biggest problem with how people respond to security system like

alarms going off because I've had that happen here before where like I would set it off and the police come by and like just kind of peek around and I'm like, oh my God, if someone was holding me hostage in here, you're just going to like leave. Right. I don't know. So they literally just walked the perimeter. They didn't go inside. So it is totally possible that you're right.

Someone picked the lock. Someone's waiting inside, but they say that everything looked calm and they basically tell the security company, we checked it out, nothing's wrong. And from what I gather, like the ultimate theory that they think happened is that maybe Pat didn't fully close the door on her way out that morning, which made the alarm go off. Okay, but then the door would be open, right? It might have been open again.

The next person that comes home is actually Pat herself before Jim, before anything. So if the door had been left open a little bit or wasn't locked or something, we don't know because Patricia's not here to tell us. When police get a hold of Pat's mom to see if she ever connected with Pat after she left the voicemail, she tells them, yes, and this is what I mean, Pat had actually come home. She called her back at 12 30 reassured her that everything was okay. And she said that during that call, her daughter was totally normal. While it's unclear what Pat did after that call to her mom, the last thing police are

able to confirm is that she actually did reset the alarm at 111 p.m. And this to them indicates that she is leaving the house around that time. So this is when she would have closed the door, locked the door, and that's how Jim would have found the house. So police then go speak to neighbors, but no one reports seeing or even hearing anything suspicious at all that day. Denise Superville and Scott Fallon reported for the Herald News that police begin stopping buses and contacting taxi companies to see if anyone had picked her up, thinking that,

you know, she likely had left willingly since they found no sign otherwise so far. They also even contact nearby airports to see if she had flown that day. But phone call after phone call stop after stop gives them no leads. As the hours tick by, the pressure to find Pat is building. She has now missed several doses of her epilepsy medication. So the risk of her having a seizure is increasing by the second. And since Pat is at a severe risk, police ramp up the search efforts and bring in a police dog to try and track her scent, thinking that they could at least get an idea of where she

went by picking up her trail if she left the house. But the dogs aren't able to pick up anything. They even go so far as to do an aerial search over local rivers and marshes. But after a few days with nothing to go on, it almost seems like she disappeared into thin air. So I know police haven't suspected foul play at this point, but I mean, after a few days with no answers, they've got to be wondering if someone else was involved with her disappearance, right?

Well, as a matter of fact, they are. Police have two primary theories at this point. So one is that she left on her own and two is that she met with foul play. And since they aren't getting anywhere with the first option, they begin considering the second that someone made Pat disappear. And they think that person responsible might be closer to home than they realize. So remember when I said that Jim had left work early that day, Pat went missing to go get some Valentine's Day gifts?

Yeah, I don't know about anybody else, but that little detail definitely stuck out to me. Yeah, well, when police start investigating for possible criminal activity, that detail sticks out to them too. Now Jim has been cooperating fully with the police the entire time. But as part of their investigation, they have to take a look at those closest to Pat and consider all the options. So several days into the investigation, police decide to bring Jim in for questioning.

According to the disappeared episode, police questioned Jim for several hours. They asked him about every part of his day. Why did he leave early from work? Can anyone verify where he was? Did he go anywhere other than the store to buy those gifts? And they also questioned him about his relationship with Pat and if they were having any marital issues. But after a grueling few hours and a polygraph, police are confident that he had nothing to

do with his wife's disappearance. But just because Jim isn't a suspect doesn't mean police don't learn anything important from his interview. In fact, they get a ton of information about Pat that tells them a lot about the days leading up to her going missing. Importantly, Jim tells them Pat had been experiencing quite a few stressors in her life before she went missing. What kind of stressors?

Well, for one, Jim's mom had been really sick recently. And since Jim worked full time, Pat was kind of the one who had to take care of her. And while this wasn't the biggest burden in the world, it was kind of just one more person that she had to take care of, you know? So while caring for Jim's mom was manageable for Pat, Jim tells police that a much more crushing blow came just a few weeks before her disappearance. Remember how I said that Pat's license had been suspended a few months prior to her going missing?

Yeah. Well, according to reporting by Karen Mahabir for NorthJersey.com, her seizures had been becoming more frequent before that one that caused her license to be taken away. And that suspension was supposed to last until January, as long as she didn't have any more seizures. But in that disappeared episode, Jim said that the doctor had just extended that license suspension by another three months right before Patricia had gone missing. And this really bothered Pat because it meant that she couldn't do the things she loved,

like driving her kids to and from school or the activities or, I mean, she couldn't go to the mall by herself for like, at this point, we're talking could be six months. I actually completely kind of get this. My dad had a health issue and when I was 16, he had his license suspended for about a year because of his health. And it really took a lot of his independence away. Like he couldn't. He had to depend on us, unlike me, a 16 year old to drive him to work every day.

So hard. Yeah. Now, in addition to all of this, like that's not enough. Jim also says that his sister Donna had recently moved in with the family after a nasty breakup with a boyfriend. And even though it was only supposed to be temporary, some of Donna's habits were like really grinding Pat, getting under her skin. Well, and also just like a house guest staying that long.

Ugh. But what kind of habits? What bothered Pat the most was Donna's smoking. Police learned from Jim that Donna would smoke in the house. And so basically after Donna left every day, Pat would go in and do her best to make the cigarette smell go away. She would try vacuuming. She would use air fresheners, that kind of thing.

And I can imagine that Pat saw Donna as sort of just again, another person she's having to look after and clean up after and worry about in her home on top of every other member of her family. But the thing is, like, while the smoking was definitely annoying, again, definitely getting under her skin, Pat hadn't said anything to Donna about it. Again, I think in her mind, she's thinking, okay, this is just temporary. I just have to get over this like hump, however long this is going to be. So she was basically just putting up with it for the time being.

That is until February 12th. This is the day before she went missing. That's when she found cigarette burns on the guest bedspread and this set her off because now not only is the bedspread ruined, this is a major fire hazard. Yeah. And I mean, her two kids are in this house. I can totally see how this would kind of up the ante and she would be incredibly bothered by this.

I would be furious. So she obviously talks to Jim about it and Pat had a plan to confront Donna because to your point, like, you're putting my kids at risk now. This isn't just like a nuisance, but they decided, okay, we're going to talk to her the next day. We're going to like fix all of this. Okay. Why not confront her right then?

Well, the two are actually supposed to go to a party that evening hosted by Pat's best friend, Twanette. So I think they decided to just let it rest and come back to it the next morning just to like, again, let's have a nice night. Let's not like have this family fight right now and then we'll address it when we wake up. Which makes sense. But how was she at the party?

I mean, I know if it were me, like you wouldn't, you would be able to tell something was stewing. Stewing immediately. Did any of our friends notice her acting strange or anything? They actually did. And it's more than just her acting strange. There was a huge red flag at the party, but Jim didn't even know about it. Police only learned about it when they talked to Twanette. She tells police that she had a conversation with Pat when she came over for the party

that just left her feeling totally shaken. Twanette says in an interview for disappeared that when Jim and Pat first arrived, everything seemed normal. So she didn't get that red flag that like, oh, she's like pissed about something. Pat looked put together. She looked cheery. But once they made their way inside, Pat pulled her aside and was like, we need to talk right now.

So Twanette being a good friend immediately took her into another room away from the other party guest and was shocked when Pat immediately just like fell apart. Twanette tells police that between her tears, Pat told her something was very, very wrong. Okay, did she say what that something was? That's the thing. She didn't. Twanette says that Pat wouldn't give her any details as to what was going on despite her asking repeatedly what it was.

Pat only said that it was too complicated to go into at the party, but promised her that she would tell her everything if they could go away somewhere together for a few days. I mean, she went so far as to ask Twanette to cancel her vacation that she had coming up. Like that is how badly she needed her friend to help her get through whatever was happening. And to Twanette's credit, girl immediately agreed. She's like, I'm going to cancel everything. I'm going to drop everything.

And she promised Pat that they could go anywhere she wanted to together, which to me kind of makes me feel like this isn't just about Donna or her mother- I just feel so much bigger and almost scarier. Yeah. I mean, don't you feel like if we were at a party, I'd just be like, I just feel so overwhelmed. Like, you know, Eric's mother is doing this and his sister is doing this. And I don't know that that feels like something you can unload. But to be like, I can't even tell you it's too complicated.

I mean, unless she was having bigger feelings about her life and marriage, I don't know. I guess I'm making some assumptions about her relationship with Twanette, but like, I would assume that she already knows that Donna is living with Pat and Jim and that Jim's mom is already ailing and Pat has to take care of her. Like, those are things that, you know, interfere with your daily life, kind of change up the schedule and you're really good friends who already know this. So this has to be something so much bigger, so much scarier. I mean, God, what could it be?

Well, what Pat says next is even more concerning. She says that she wanted Twanette to look after her kids no matter what happened to her. What? Yeah. And at this point, Twanette says she began crying. And again, she asked Pat, like, what is going on, but Pat only reinforced that she couldn't say anything, which these are like the conversations. I think this is the crime junkie life role, right?

Like if you have something, you have to say it immediately or something is like going to happen to you. Right. I mean, I think we talked about this in a past episode. Like, but if this were you, you have to swear to me. If something's happening, there can be like, no, we'll talk about this later. Like you have to unload immediately. I promise if you promise.

Promise. And Twanette, like, was pressing hard, trying to get Pat to give her more information, but it became clear to her that she wasn't going to get any answers out of her friend. But she knew that they were going to talk later. So literally that night after the party ended, she canceled her vacation. And did they reconnect the next day? Well, here's where things get so weird. Twanette called Pat the next morning.

And according to Leslie Coren's reporting for the record, she definitely did seem a little off or upset. Again, this is the 13th, the day she ends up going missing. But just like the night before, Pat said that she didn't want to talk about it. And she actually ended up kind of totally brushing it off. Wait, so her friend just canceled her vacation and Pat's like, oh, thanks, but never mind. Forget about it. Yes.

I wouldn't let you off the hook. I'd be like, no girl, like I just canceled my vacation. You were crying at my house. You asked me to take care of your kids no matter what. Yeah. Even if it seems okay today. It's something we should probably talk about. Right.

But here's where things get even more bizarre. Once Pat got off the phone with Twanette, that's when Pat apparently stormed down the stairs and started screaming at Donna about the burnt bedspread. And both Donna and even Jim, when he later found out about this, were completely taken aback by this reaction because Jim says he doesn't even remember a time in their entire marriage when Pat ever raised her voice ever, much less berated someone the way she did Donna. So I guess to me, this kind of sounds like one of those straw that broke the camel's back situations.

Like she had all these things going on in her life, the driver's license, the family drama. And I mean, she was clearly struggling with something. All this has to have police going back to the theory that maybe Pat just walked away and there isn't any foul play involved. Yeah, I mean, they look into her walking away or even into the possibility of suicide. But since there isn't any physical evidence to support it, like, I mean, there's no note. There's nothing to indicate what happened.

Police don't actually jump to that conclusion and just like close the case cold. And listen, Pat's family definitely doesn't believe that she died by suicide or took her own life in any kind of way. Jim says in that same article for the record, quote, I don't think she would do anything to herself. Not with her mother and children in her life. End quote. Jim also tells police that despite the hardship she was facing, Pat actually had a lot of

good things to look forward to. Like, for example, the couple had just purchased a timeshare up in Pennsylvania that they had yet to visit and they were looking forward to spending time up there as a family. At this point, it's been two weeks since Pat vanished. And even with police still searching, the likelihood that they'll find Pat alive and unharmed is getting slimmer and slimmer by the day. And that's when investigators are approached by Jim with a theory, one that he believes could be the key to bringing Pat home.

Jim suggests that Pat could have run out to the store for something and maybe had a seizure while she was out. Pat had been interested in getting Jim this singing monkey in a cage for Valentine's Day just as a cute little gag gift, but since it wasn't found at the house, he thinks that maybe she could have gone out to get it that afternoon that she went missing. Paul Johnson reported for the record that if Pat had experienced a seizure while going to or from the store, Jim thinks that she may have been seriously injured or maybe even gotten amnesia because of it.

And maybe, just maybe, she's in a hospital somewhere and doesn't know who she is. And listen, I didn't know if amnesia was actually a common symptom of seizures, so Brad actually asked you to look this up for me while I continued to research this case. Do you want to tell everyone what you found? Sure. And the basic answer is it can be. According to the Epilepsy Foundation, memory loss is actually a common side effect of epilepsy, but most people only experience like small gaps in their memory or have difficulty recalling

like specific details like names or dates. And severe amnesia resulting in losing like years of memory is usually only seen in severe epilepsy cases. Okay, so from what we know, the only severe seizure that she had recently was the one that she had had like three months ago that resulted in her license being taken away. So while the likelihood of her suddenly losing all memory of who she was wasn't entirely impossible, based on what you said, it seems kind of unlikely. Yeah.

Ultimately, police tell Jim that they disagree with this theory, but they say for a different reason. You see, when a patient shows up to the hospital and they don't have any idea who they are, law enforcement is actually notified so they can assist in finding who this mystery person is. Right. They become like a living dough. Right.

So if Pat really did lose her memory and was taken to a hospital, the police are like, listen, we would have been informed already. But still, Jim takes Pat's photo to every surrounding hospital just to be sure she's not there. But none of the hospitals have a Jane Doe that matches Pat's description. As February turns into March, the police are no closer to finding Pat. Jim sends her story to every local newspaper and gives interview after interview, hoping that someone will come forward with anything that will help them find his wife.

And while the tips that come in are few and far between, all police need is just that one that could lead them down the right path. And in March, about a month after Pat disappeared, one of those tips does come that offers a glimmer of hope that they've been waiting for. In another piece written by Leslie Corn for the record, a man calls police saying that he thinks he saw Pat up in Pennsylvania. Which is where the family has their timeshare, right? It is.

Now the family hadn't actually been up there to visit it yet, so it wasn't included in the initial search when they went out looking for her. But after that tip comes in, law enforcement jump on it. The tip had come from East Strausberg, Pennsylvania, which is about a 10 minute drive from where their timeshare is, which is located in Shawnee, Pennsylvania. So even though their different towns are like close enough that police are making the connection. They contact the local police up there and Jim himself actually drives up there to check the timeshare thinking that, you know, maybe the argument with Donna was enough to like

set her off, make her want to get away for a couple of days. Maybe something happened to her that's preventing her from coming home. But when he gets there, there's no sign of Pat and it doesn't even look like she'd been at the timeshare at all. While local police keep searching, Jim gets coverage of Pat's case on the local news and stops everyone he can to ask about Pat. But unfortunately, this ends up being yet another dead end. Over a year passes before the next tip comes in.

And this time it's unlike any other call they've ever gotten. On the other end is a man who claims to have killed Pat Viola. His exact words are actually, quote, I killed the old girl, end quote. Police do their best to keep this man on the other end of the line talking as long as possible, trying to get his location and any other information out of him that they can before he hangs up. But as they're talking, he starts saying things that start making them think that maybe he had nothing to do with Pat's disappearance.

What makes them think that? Like what did he say? Well, the main thing is that he claims to have Pat's driver's license. And remember, they know that Pat didn't actually have a physical license at the time, like hers was suspended. So there doesn't seem any way that he could have it unless she had like an old copy or it's just not adding up. Still, it's been like a year since they've had anything solid to go on, so they keep

talking to this guy. They don't just write him off yet. And the man seems happy to keep talking. He conveniently offers up that he is headed up the east coast on his way to Massachusetts and that there's a woman traveling with him. And he even offers a description of the woman. Okay, does this dude want to get caught? Yeah, I mean, something is feeling off about this.

Like police are pretty convinced that this man probably has nothing to do with Pat's appearance, but still they want to be sure so they mobilize a unit in North Carolina to intercept this bus that the man claims to be on. When they do, they don't find him, but they do find the woman he claimed to be traveling with. And it turns out that the caller is this woman's ex who is just upset that she left him for another man. So he basically just wanted to make her life a little bit more difficult.

Exactly. After this tip, the case more or less officially goes cold. Police still work every tip they get, even though they are few and far between. Paul Johnson's piece for the record says that people called in from all over New Jersey, Pennsylvania, even Montana with sightings of Pat, but time after time, these sightings leave nowhere. And while police are busy still working the case again, they're not just letting it lie. Jim does everything he can to keep Pat in the public's eye.

He even works with a private investigator, this guy named Gary Miko, who volunteers his services after seeing the website that Jim put together to help provide information on Pat's case. And when Gary begins his search, he hears of an interesting theory, a theory that some locals believe is the key defining Pat. Even though the violas live in a pretty safe neighborhood, just a few years before Pat went missing, there was actually another tragedy that struck their quiet suburban street. And the way the PI found out about this blows my mind, and this is proof for every crime

jenki out there that you can actually be useful, and if you know something, don't assume everyone else does too, because I think this guy was walking up the street and happened to run into the mailman. And the mailman's like, it's really hard for me to believe that her disappearance didn't have something to do with the crime that happened across the street. And the guy's like, what crime happened across the street? Exactly! No one else had pieces together, like crime jenki's out there, you can be useful.

But anyways, according to a New York Times article by Robert Hanley, the safe family-friendly town of Bogota was shaken when three men were found murdered in a home just down the street from the violas on October 23rd, 1997. The homeowner, 36-year-old Rajesh, had been at home with two men, Ajit and Bouchon, when two men forced their way in and shot them all execution style. Oh my god, I mean, was this like a robbery gone wrong? So Rajesh was a successful diamond wholesaler, which at first made police think that the murders were part of a robbery.

But Paul Olima would later report for the record that the robbery was actually secondary to the murders. Ajit and Bouchon were definitely not intended to be victims of the crime, they were really just at the wrong place at the wrong time. But Rajesh had been a target of a man named Dimpy for months. He had hired two men, Miguel and Richard, to kill Rajesh, saying he, quote, swindled some friends of his, end quote. In addition to a fee for the murder, Dimpy promised that they could keep any of the cash

or gems they found in the home, and the two did end up taking a large sum of money in jewels after the murders that had been carried out. Ultimately, four men were arrested for the triple homicide of Rajesh, Ajit and Bouchon. The three I just mentioned, Miguel, Richard and Dimpy, as well as a man named Darwin, who actually introduced Miguel to Dimpy and acted as the driver. Okay, so what does this triple homicide from 97 have to do with Pat going missing in 2001? Well, it's all about timing, because Miguel, Richard and Darwin were all going to trial around that time, and according to court documents, Miguel even tried to hire someone to kill

two of the witnesses. So what, people think that Pat could have been on that list of witnesses? So again, this is like rumored at the time, maybe she was, or another theory that a lot of people have is maybe there was some kind of mix up, like they were looking for someone that they thought was a witness and got Pat instead. Now Gary is skeptical when he first hears about this, but he looks into it anyway. I mean, after all, the police have no leads at this point, so he's going to look into any possible lead that comes his way.

But in the end, he thinks the likelihood of Pat's case being related to this specific crime is highly unlikely, because Pat was not a witness. She was not involved in the triple homicide case in any way. She wasn't on the list. She never gave any statements to police or to media. So she likely wasn't targeted as part of the scheme to get rid of a witness. Again, you know, maybe there's still this out there theory that she was mistaken for someone else, but like she had zero ties to the case officially.

After this last lead, the case kind of stalls again. As the years pass, police continue to work the case, but without any viable leads, it just remains cold. Jim and the Viola family never give up hope of finding Pat, and Jim actually becomes an influential figure in legislation regarding missing people. In 2008, he works alongside government officials and other loved ones of missing people in the state of New Jersey to pass Patricia's law, which is a law that requires police to take every missing person's report, regardless of the circumstance, and inform the family

of available support services. Additionally, if the missing person has not been found within 30 days, police have to take DNA samples of the missing person and enter them into a national database. Um, hi, I feel like every state should have this law. I know, again, this is one of those things where you're just like, I just assumed they were doing these things, but like apparently you have to put it down and like black and white for people to do this, but agreed. As time continues to pass with no movement in the case, everyone involved is haunted

by questions that they still have about that cold day in February, but in 2012, they found that an answer to at least one of their questions was closer than they realized. According to the Herald News article I mentioned toward the top of this episode, police get a call from the University of North Texas's Center for Human Identification. This call comes in on September 11th, 2012, and in this call, they say that human remains that were found washed ashore in 2002 have been identified as Pat Viola's through DNA. Wait, 2002? 2002.

They had her remains a year after she went missing? Well they only had partial remains. You see, on July 27th, 2002, again, 10 years before they're getting this call, a bone fragment from a left foot was found washed ashore by a man walking on Rockaway Beach in Queens. It was found along with a sock and a white sneaker that matched the ones Pat had been wearing the day that she disappeared. Get this, even though the remains were found in 2002, DNA wasn't extracted until 2005.

Okay, why did it take them three years to get a DNA sample? So immediately my head exploded when I heard that until I read this article in the Herald News that says the medical examiner's office was still overwhelmed by the aftermath of 9-11 at the time of the discovery. I forgot how close it was to New York City. They still had over 21,000 unidentified remains and over 1,000 people had not been positively identified yet. So again, I can kind of appreciate why it would take a little bit longer for them to

analyze the remains, but I don't think it can explain the fact that it took another four years for that DNA once it was extracted to be sent to the University of North Texas for analysis? Are they held onto the DNA until 2009? Sure did. Why? Well, the medical examiner's office doesn't give any answer as to why. And even after that, the remains aren't confirmed to be PATs until 2012.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm struggling to process the entire thing as to why it took a decade. Like how did it take this long for remains to be identified? Did they just not have anything to compare it to or what? So that's part of the problem. Again, I have no explanation for why it took like years after extraction to just be sent off. PATs kids didn't submit an updated DNA sample to CODIS until 2011, and that is actually what the remains were matched to.

And look, these things take time. It's not like what we see on TV where everything happens instantly. Right. But the fact that these remains literally sat in storage for over a decade is, again, frustrating for me, but it's frustrating to police and the Viola family who've spent how much time and resources over the last decade looking for a missing person who has likely been deceased this whole time. Right.

So even though it's only a bone fragment, a sock and a shoe, are investigators able to come up with a more concrete theory as to what happened to PAT or even how she ended up in the water in the first place? No, unfortunately, they can't come to any conclusions based on the small amount of bone fragment that they have. Rockaway Beach is about five and a half miles long and leads into the Atlantic Ocean, so there's really no telling where or how her body could have gone into the water. And I mean, at the time of the discovery, police had actually searched the beach on

foot with helicopters trying to find like any additional remains, but they never ended up finding anything else. So what could have happened to her? I mean, is there even like a short list? No, I mean, I think you go back to the theories they had from the day she walked away, right? Like, did she go away on her own? There is still the possibility that maybe she took her own life, that she jumped into a body of water somewhere, but then you have to ask how on earth did she get there, right?

Like, she couldn't drive, she didn't take a bus, we know that she didn't take a plane or a taxi or whatever. Well, and on top of that, like, I personally can't shake the whole house alarm going off. I don't love that. I don't. What? Yeah, I can't get over. Everyone seems so willing to just be like, oh, she must have left the door open and like

tripped on its own. I don't know why that just does not sit right with me. And I mean, again, was someone waiting in the house when she made that call to her mom? Was she alone? I have so many questions about this case. And you know, there was even one, I didn't add it in the story because like I couldn't verify it in multiple places. But in the disappeared episode, her friend even says like that monkey in a cage that

she wanted to buy for her husband, I had such a strong suspicion that she went out looking for that that day that I went and showed her pictures at like local convenience stores. And one of the convenience stores said that she was there, but again, I couldn't back this up anywhere. There's no mention of like surveillance footage. Like, where was she going at 111? Like she didn't have any plans. My head's spinning.

Right. And it's not like she could even pick her kids up from school. Now police say that Pat's case is still open. They aren't ruling out anything at this point and they're actively working to help bring closure to the Viola family. But at the end of the day, nothing can truly bring them closure. Jim, Christine and Michael are still waiting for the answers to the questions that have kept them up at night for over 20 years.

You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Did you approve?