Thirty-four years ago this month, Susan Taraskiewicz, a 27-year-old baggage supervisor for Northwest Airlines at Logan Airport, left work and did not come home. Her body was found in the trunk of a car in Revere. Nobody has ever been charged. On Saturday, September 12, her family, friends, retired investigators and neighbors gathered at Constitution Beach in East Boston for a vigil, and the people organizing it say they are done waiting quietly.
The case
Taraskiewicz disappeared in September 1992 after leaving her shift at Logan. The details of the investigation over the decades, including the theory that she was killed because of what she knew about a credit card theft ring among airport baggage workers, have been reported many times without producing an arrest. WCVB covered the vigil on September 12 and described it as an effort to spark a renewed public awareness campaign.
Dianne C. Braley, an author who has taken up the case and administers a Facebook group devoted to it, has gone further. She has posted a petition asking the U.S. Attorney’s office to take a renewed look at the murder at the federal level, and she wrote after the vigil that Massachusetts State Police told those present the investigation is highly active and has a specific focus. “If you’ve been holding on to something, now is the time to come forward,” she wrote, adding that people can contact her privately and anonymously. We have not independently confirmed the State Police characterization and have asked the department’s press office for comment.
Braley is also a guest on this week’s episode of the podcast Missing, hosted by Lance Reenstierna and Tim Pilleri, about the case.
Why it matters here
Taraskiewicz grew up in the airport’s shadow, worked among neighbors from East Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop, and was found in Revere. The people who might know something are, thirty-four years later, in their fifties and sixties, and many of them still live in these three cities. Anyone with information can contact the Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the Suffolk District Attorney’s office, or the Suffolk DA’s office directly.