Joseph "Joe Lupo" Rulli Part 2: Escape or Execution?
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There was a lot of turmoil in the family before 1971. When you have two brothers on opposite sides of the law and really defining time, like one of them going missing. There's life there.

from March 8th, 1932, when my uncle Joe was born, to April 20, 1971. There's enough other pieces of information after that date in 1971 that makes it sound like he did not die in that parking lot in 1971.

He reached out to the guy who investigated it for the state police. The guy was retired. He was living out of state. And he called him and said, hey, I hope you're enjoying your retirement. I have a quick question for you. Joe Lupo. And the guy said, did they find him?

Last week, we shared part one of Joseph Joe Lupo Rulli's story.

You learned about his rise in the boxing world at a young age, along with Joe's battle with polio that tragically ended his career far too soon, and Joe's eventual ties to the mafia. For a while, things were looking good for Joe. But by April of 1971, a mafia turf war was raging. Several of Joe's associates, including his partner, had been murdered. Joe had been warned that he was next. He was a marked man.

In the weeks leading up to his disappearance, Joe had a tense encounter at his doorstep. FBI agents, along with his older brother Dennis, an investigator for the New Jersey State Police, had stopped by to offer Joe a way out, become an informant and receive protection. But Joe refused. He wasn't a rat. Not long after, Joe hosted a going-away party for one of his higher-ups. This event was supposed to mark a new chapter for him.

But before the party even started, Joe stepped out for what he claimed was a quick errand, and he never returned. His wife Cynthia arrived at the party, only to find her husband missing. A wave of panic washed over her. She could feel that something was horribly amiss. Cynthia had been at home when the FBI approached Joe, offering him protection.

She understood the gravity of the situation. She knew the kind of danger her husband was in. In the days that followed, Cynthia reported Joe missing. His car later turned up, riddled with bullets and soaked in blood. At first, it seemed like an open and shut case, a mafia hit on a marked man. When Joe's brother Dennis arrived on scene, he assumed he would find Joe's body in the trunk. In

Instead, all he found were Easter baskets filled with melted candy. Further investigation revealed that the blood inside the car wasn't Joe's. In fact, it was animal blood. This discovery turned the case on its head. It was no longer a simple mafia hit. The possibility emerged that Joe had orchestrated his own escape. Had he secretly taken the FBI's offer to start a new life?

Did a family member help him slip away undetected while everyone else partied? Or had Joe been murdered and someone staged the scene with animal blood? These questions have haunted Joe's son for decades. And by bringing his father's story to light, he hopes someone with answers will finally step forward and help solve this decades-old mystery.

I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 484 of The Vanished. Joseph Joe Lupo Rulli's story, part two, escape or execution. I just learned that 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused each month. You sign up for something, forget about it after the trial period ends, then you're charged month after month after month.

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I'm Jesse Weber. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. Joe's son, also named Joe, grew up knowing his father was missing, but the full story didn't come to light until he was in college. It was then that he decided to learn more about his father's disappearance. When he asked his mother for details, she revealed the shocking truth. His father had been involved in organized crime. Joe was only five years old when his father vanished.

and the specifics of what happened were never openly discussed in front of him. As an adult, Joe began reaching out to family members to piece together the puzzle of his father's disappearance in April of 1971. Over the years, many family members had held onto the belief that Joe was out there somewhere, living on the run, either evading law enforcement or hiding from the mafia. Some thought that one day, Joe might just show up or find a way to make contact. They waited, but the day never came.

The waiting game continues with no answers in sight. Everybody at first kind of thought sooner or later we're going to hear from him. I asked my uncle Bobby, he was the youngest brother. I said, you know, I can't wrap my head around. If I had a brother who disappeared with the same circumstances, I would think that every time I was with my family, this would come up and we'd be talking about it. What do you think? He goes, oh, for years we talked about it. And I said, what did you talk about? He

He said, we would say, I wonder where Joe is. I hope he's okay. Sometimes we would click our glasses to him. If he's out there, this is the Joe. But when my father disappeared, he was out on bail. In one of the investigations they had on him, they found a gun in our house while they were doing a search warrant. Obviously, my father was not supposed to have a gun. He wouldn't take a plea. He went to trial. He tried to beat it.

And they found him guilty. But there was enough problems with the case that the judge wasn't real happy with that they notified the judge at trial that they were going to appeal this for A, B, and C reasons. The judge allowed my father to remain on the street on bail until the appeal was heard.

Well, it took until about within two weeks of his disappearance, that appeal was heard and he was found guilty. So he immediately became a fugitive at that point as well. So he would have went to prison, which gave him another reason to get out of town. He would have done a year in prison. He probably would have been out in seven, eight months. My mother had always said that wasn't a big deal to him. This wasn't like it was a murder charge or a racketeering charge. It was just a gun possession charge.

So he also had the police looking for him. My uncle had said, you know, geez, if I go to the state police and say, hey, I got some information. My brother's in Florida. Can we look into it? They may go down and look into it and bring him back here and arrest him. And he said, so I just figured, you know what, maybe we're going to hear back from him someday. Nobody who I've ever spoke to has ever admitted hearing from him again.

Joe recalled that his mother often mentioned how nervous his father seemed in the days leading up to his disappearance, especially considering that several colleagues had been murdered in recent months. Could the mounting pressure and fear have been so overwhelming that he truly decided to leave his life behind for good?

My mother said you could tell that this was weighing on him, what was going on around him. I think he knew that there was a possibility that he could have been murdered at any time. He was waiting on that appeal to find out what was happening. But if he lost the appeal, he was going to have to go to prison. And, you know, they could kill you in prison, too. So I'm sure that it was a crazy time for him.

As Joe grew older, his uncle Dennis began to open up more about the information he had been quietly carrying. Over time, he gradually revealed more details about what he knew, believing that Joe, now mature enough, could handle the sensitive and shocking truths about his father's life.

My uncle, when he became older, he and I became pretty close. He ended up moving out of North Jersey. He bought a house at the shore and I would go visit him quite often and he would reflect and tell me a lot of things. And the older I got, the more he would tell me things that he, I guess, didn't want to tell me, wasn't comfortable telling me. As a young man, he wasn't afraid to tell me as an older guy. And now the one thing I

I learned much later in life something he held back from me for a long time. When he was called to that scene, all these detectives, nobody noticed what I noticed. My brother couldn't walk five feet without a cane or a crutch, and his cane was not in the car. Whatever happened in that car, chances are he walked away from it with his cane. Because if he was murdered in that car, and let's say they wanted to get rid of his body, do you think they're going to go as far as to take his cane with them, who

Whoever the murderers are, the hit men would be, that they would go back and get his cane? Probably not. That was a pretty telling piece of evidence.

One of the stories Dennis shared with Joe was about an old friend from Joe's boxing days, a man named Leroy. In the years following Joe's disappearance, Dennis unexpectedly ran into Leroy at a local sporting event. To Dennis' surprise, Leroy, unaware that Joe was missing, casually mentioned that he had seen Joe in Florida. Dennis was taken aback. This wasn't some stranger who had spotted Joe's face on a missing persons poster and thought they may have seen him. This

This was someone who had known Joe for years. Could it have been a case of mistaken identity? Or was it something more? Over the years, there had been rumors about Joe fleeing to Florida, but no one had ever been able to prove it. Even a law enforcement official hinted at this possibility in local papers, though the origin of that information remains unclear and its credibility questionable. Joe shared more about the strange encounter his Uncle Dennis had with Leroy.

There was a story that my uncle told me to take with a grain of salt, but it still happened. My dad has gone maybe two or three years

And my uncle's daughter was a cheerleader for Lodi High School. And I think it was the Thanksgiving game. Off in the distance, there's this gentleman. My uncle recognized him. He was a guy named Leroy who used to box with my father when they were amateurs at the Lodi gym. And Leroy became a very good fighter in his own right. Leroy noticed him. And Leroy said, hey, Dennis.

And my uncle turned, hey, Leroy, how are you? And they shake hands and they're talking and they're making small talk. Leroy says, yeah, I'm up from Florida. I'm visiting some family for the holiday. Do you live here anymore? Still live here? And no, I live in Florida and I've been down there for 20 years. So my uncle is saying goodbye to him. Leroy turns back and says, oh, I forgot to ask you. How's Joey doing? And my uncle says, I don't want to get into it right now. It's Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving.

Because he's going to ask me questions. I'll be here for an hour. So my uncle's answer was, he's doing good, Leroy. He's doing really good. And Leroy goes, yeah, I'm glad to hear that. He looked great when I saw him. So obviously Leroy didn't know anything about what happened in Jersey. This is three years removed from the disappearance. My uncle says, well, when did you see Joey last? Maybe about a year ago, six months ago. And my uncle says, where? I saw him at a racetrack in Florida. I think it was Gulfstream Racetrack. And he says...

"Nah, it couldn't have been a year ago. It must have been a few years ago." He goes, "No, no, I'm telling you. It might not even have been a year ago. It might have been six or eight months ago." And my uncle's like, "Are you sure, Leroy?" He goes, "Yeah, I'm sure. I know Joey." He goes, "Joey and I used to beat the hell out of each other in the ring. I know Joey. I saw him, but he acted kind of nervous around me, and he's bought me a drink, and he says, 'I'm going to go use the bathroom. I'll be right back.' And he never came back."

And Leroy said, I don't know, maybe he was mad at me, but he never came back. And my uncle said, ah, he was probably there on business and he was with other people. Leroy said, yeah, that's kind of what I figured.

Now, my uncle said, take it with a grain of salt, because I did. Leroy was a little punch drunk, but the guy did mention Florida, and that's where the rumors were. My uncle just felt that this was a guy who maybe stayed in boxing a little too long. He said he was kind of disheveled when he saw him. He just didn't look like he was in the right state of mind. And my uncle, what could he have done with that? Leroy wasn't in exactly a...

reliable source, but could he have gotten this wrong?

Mark has also heard the story about Leroy, and as he pieced together the details, he began to wonder if Leroy's claim wasn't just a coincidence, but rather another key piece of the puzzle that might explain his uncle's disappearance. Having grown up with the mystery lingering over his family, Mark had his own theories about what could have happened to his Uncle Joe, and this encounter with Leroy only deepened his suspicions. Mark told us more about his own perspective on this.

When we're talking about this, he had told me that there was a heavyweight fighter, Leroy Coleman, that came up to Dennis and was making small talk. And then, hey, I saw your brother Joe down in Florida. And I can remember the look my uncle gave me. And he's like, Leroy, are you sure you know what you're saying? And he's like, yeah. And it was like an awkward moment.

And then that was it. There was a few of those types of conversations and newspaper articles and things of that sort. But, you know, Leroy Coleman was a fighter. My uncle was a fighter. It's hard to mistake.

If you see a guy that walks with a limp with crutches, that was forever. That wasn't going to change. You see that guy in Florida, it's hard to make that mistake. It's a pretty telling thing. It's just one of those breadcrumbs that make you keep going down this trail. Like it just none of this adds up except that.

He got out. You could change your hair color. You can grow a beard. You can't get rid of arm braces. I'm sure at some point in his life, he had to go into a hospital for something. These are all the things that I keep thinking about, trying to get my head around. There was speculation around the horse tracks. And I think actually Leroy Coleman mentioned he saw him at a horse track. But you would also think he was also comfortable at a horse track.

let's keep in mind is what he's done, gambling, that life, hard to change that. That's all you know. We began to wonder if Joe had connections in Florida, people who may have helped him escape the chaos of the mafia war in New Jersey. Mark shed some light on this, explaining that there were indeed family ties to Florida. He revealed that certain relatives had lived there for years, and while they weren't known to be involved in the criminal underworld, their presence in the state could have provided Joe with a safe haven.

There are some other stories besides the Leroy Coleman story or some other information that kind of lends itself as to why Florida. I get that everybody in New Jersey goes to Florida. It's like going down the shore. I understand that, but there's a tie, a family tie with Florida that I learned about when I sat with my dad and my uncle and my aunt. There was a family Russo, R-U-S-S-O, that were tomato farmers. I've

I've got Opalaca, O-P-A-L-A-C-A, Florida, written down in these notes. It was a Joseph Russo, had a son named Frank Russo. And I don't recall one of those had a bad leg, walked with crutches. And there was a relationship between my Uncle Joe and this guy. There was some reports that he was hiding out in Key West.

And there's some history that they may have had a tomato farm in the Keys. Apparently, they were one of the first that canned tomatoes and brought them up to the north in the 50s and things like that. Did that happen? Don't know. Was he comfortable with Florida?

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That's greenlight.com slash vanished to get started. Greenlight.com slash vanished. In 1976, a Georgia native, Navy veteran, and peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter won his bid for the presidency. What Carter didn't know then was that the next four years would be the most difficult he could ever imagine.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast, American History Tellers. We take you to the events, times, and people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. In our latest series, we explore Jimmy Carter's time in the White House, from his unexpected presidential victory as an outsider vowing to clean up Washington, to his remarkable diplomatic breakthroughs and legislative accomplishments on energy, education, and the environment.

But Carter also faced crushing challenges as he worked to lead the country through energy shortages, sky-high inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis. Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

As Joe dug deeper into his father's disappearance, he started to consider the possibility that his father had disappeared willingly. He persisted in asking questions, reaching out to family members, old friends, and even law enforcement officials for their perspectives. Each conversation seemed to uncover more conflicting theories. But the notion of his father fleeing to start a new life began to feel more plausible with every new detail Joe uncovered.

I have a lot of friends who are police officers and retired cops now. I have a redacted version of my father's FBI file. One of them, he looked at it and he said, Joe, show me the evidence that says your father was killed in that car. The blood wasn't his. There's no evidence of it. There's a term when somebody gets out of town going on the lam.

And guys were doing it quite a bit. Either they were running from the law, they were running from a subpoena, or they were running from the mob itself, and they just had to get out of town. My mom, when she would talk about it, she would always say he was murdered. She says it was in the car. I always really approach the subject gently with her because my mother loved my father until the day she died. She never remarried. She loved the man.

she would always say he was murdered there. I'd say, well, mom, what about the blood? And she said, well, I can't explain everything, but he might've been murdered. And then they went back to put blood in the car. And she came up with a bunch of crazy theories.

I think she had to do that just to sell it to herself. But who really knows if she knew anything else? She always told me she did it. My mother had always told me, listen, I'm not a naive person. I know who I married. He was a great guy. He was a great father. He was a great friend. He was an okay husband.

When he ran or if he went on the lam, could he have met another woman while he was gone? Absolutely. My mom came to terms with that. She goes, he could have always replaced me. He never could have replaced you. He could have never walked away from you, not knowing that you were taken care of. He never would have left us in the position that we were left in. Maybe for a year, he knew my mom maybe had a good circle of people around her to

to get her through. And then maybe he planned on sending for her in a year or so at some point in time, maybe reaching out to let her know or let me know he's okay. And the phone call just never came. My mother always told me she didn't know anything that happened. I always believed her. And to this day, I do believe her. I think that she may have had her own suspicions, but I think that

After a while, she came to realize she felt he was dead.

Many of us might assume that if we were forced to leave our life behind for our own safety, we'd at least take a moment to say goodbye to our loved ones, perhaps even telling our spouse the truth. But for Joe, such a decision could have put Cynthia and their young son in danger. Cynthia always maintained that she had no idea what happened to Joe, and her son believed her, convinced that she was genuine in her words. She held on to that story until her passing, yet questions lingered.

Did Cynthia know any of the men Joe worked with well enough to ask about what happened? Or had any of them visited her in the aftermath? The possibility that someone in Joe's circle could have had answers remained a haunting question for years.

My father took his oath or his omerta, vow of silence, he took that pretty seriously. My mother, she knew certain friends of his, the ones that they would commiserate with, the ones they would go to dinner with or go to each other's houses. But she said there was so many people that he knew that she really had no idea who they were. They would be out to dinner. Guys would come up to the table. He would introduce them as my good friend. I

I think that when he came home, he left whatever was in the street on the street and tried to live a normal life. I was watching some old home movies from the 60s. He's hugging my mother on camera. He's with his mother. He's with me. And it just seems like a normal, normal existence. His immediate supervisor, he went to prison a week later. His partner was killed a month earlier. And then another guy who he was very close with was murdered.

in August of 71. So I think all the people that my mother knew and commiserated with, the people in that life that were actually she considered friends, they were all gone, either prison or dead. I do know that at one point he was missing for maybe a few days or a week or something like that. And she had found a book that he had always kept at the house or whatever. And it was a little black book and it had all kinds of nicknames and numbers in it. It

It was kind of written in a code. It was nicknames and numbers. And my mother had turned that over to somebody, his immediate supervisor, before he went to prison. And she had asked, what do I do? Do I move on with my life? And he just said, I really don't know. Now, whether he knew and couldn't say, because he'd be incriminating himself.

In Joe's line of work, it wasn't uncommon for people to turn informant in order to save their own skin. Law enforcement seemed to rely on street rumors and whispers to piece together what happened to Joe. But one of the most perplexing aspects of his case was that no one seemed to know anything. How could that be? In a world where secrets are currency, how could a man like Joe just vanish without a trace, leaving no one willing to talk or reveal what they knew?

The mob or mafia life is so filled with informants or rats. People are always looking to give information, get them out of their jams that they're in. And I spoke with somebody years ago who was a former state police colonel

And when I told him the story, he took a real interest in it. And he said, you know what, let me make some phone calls. And he was able to locate the state police detective who investigated organized crime, specifically my father's crime family. The guy was living out West. He was retired out there, got his phone number and called him. And he goes, I'm going to ask you about a

an old case of yours and tell me if you know anything. Do you remember anything about the Joey Lupo case? And he goes, did they find him? And the guy says, no. I'm just trying to see if you had any information that maybe you withheld or didn't put in the reports. He said, no, absolutely not. And he said, the amazing thing was...

They asked everybody that they had as informants, what happened to Joe Lupo? We don't know. Nobody knew anything what happened to him. And these were guys who would tell you, hey, this guy killed that guy. This guy is buried here. Nobody ever had any information to give on my father. And he said, but I got to tell you, every so often before I retired, I would run different investigations on

to see if there was ever an electric bill in his name somewhere or telephone bill in his name. I'll tell you what, if this guy staged his own disappearance and went on to live somewhere else, live out his years somewhere else, he did it better than anybody ever did it because we had nothing. He says, we had one guy give us some information that he heard

that he was buried in this plot of land. They actually sent out excavators, and he said, sir, we ripped that land up next door to it, across the street from it. We found nothing. He thinks the guy just gave him bad information. When he told me about what he had researched, he said the old investigating officer never even had an idea what happened to him. Not an informant, not a sighting of him. He was just gone.

When Mark reflects on the information they've gathered about his uncle's disappearance, he keeps coming back to one key detail, the car.

If Joe had been murdered on the day he vanished from the party, why would anyone go through the trouble of staging it with animal blood? What could the motivation have been? In the mafia, when someone was taken down, they were typically left out in the open as a warning, a brutal message to others. So why would Joe's situation be any different? Mark struggles to find any logical explanation for the animal blood other than it being a deliberate red herring, a way to buy time for Joe's escape.

Over the years when Mark spoke to his uncle Dennis about the case, Dennis pointed out other key details that seemed off, things that should have been present if Joe had truly been executed that day. The more Mark thought about it, the more the pieces didn't fit.

My dad, to this day, he's 87, doesn't believe his brother died in 1971. There's just too many things that have happened, too many questions, things that don't make sense. Over that year before, there was a lot of heat. There was a lot of things happening, as I understand it.

it again. I wasn't even born yet. I wish I met my uncle. I wish I knew my uncle. I know his son and I know his son's a hell of a guy and he's done a lot with what he's been given. And part of me is taking an unemotional view of all of this, trying to piece this together. But in the month's year leading up to his disappearance, as I'll call it, members of his crew were being hit

And what I know about that lifestyle, those guys that were in his crew that were hit were left hit in the street to send a message.

This isn't, let's take them and get rid of them. And why would they do that differently compared to the guys that were in his crew that were hit in front of their homes, in the street, public, left out to be seen? Then all of a sudden, fast forward to staging something that looked like a hit. They wouldn't do that. They were sending a message. There was a power play going on in Jersey at the time.

I, for the life of me, can't justify why they would treat it any different than anybody else in this crew. So then you go to the actual car. And as my uncle Dennis told me, I'd sit there and listen and jot notes and write things down. You know, when he got the call at this point, his career was taking off in the New Jersey State Police.

Everybody in law enforcement was aware. Dennis Rooley's brother, Joe Rooley, was a heavyweight in organized crime. There was a lot of action going on.

The FBI, the state police, the marshals, local police. There was apparently conversations with the FBI saying, we've overheard you're on the list to get hit. But on that day, Uncle Dennis told me he got called. He went down to the scene and he recalls them waiting for him to get there to pop the trunk.

And he thought for sure his brother was going to be in the trunk. Keep in mind, nobody knew that that blood in the car was animal blood and not human. You see a car with spent shells, bullet holes in it from the inside out, glass broken, cigarette butts on the floor. You can just piece it together. The trunk is broken.

The trunk's closed. They're there. They pop the trunk. He's thinking he's going to see his brother and his brother's not there. And furthermore, neither were his arm braces, his crutches or anything. So if you're going to take the body, are you going to be that diligent to take the arm braces that he walked with the leg braces? It's highly unlikely that they're going to do that clean of a job. They're going to make the hit and move on. And that hit will send the message.

All of that seemed to be to buy some time. I'm just speculating. But in 1971, it was a lot easier to probably relocate and be somebody else if you had to be, unlike today. It adds up to the fact, I think it's a very safe assumption, when they found his car and not him...

There was a reason for that. It was intentional, and it gave him the opportunity to get out of there. Whether it was with the help of friends and family, whether it was the help of a government agency, whether it was the help of nobody, and he did it on his own, that would be the hardest of the options. But there are some loyal guys that were alive that would have done anything for him. And I have to believe that includes his own brothers.

We know that not long before Joe vanished, FBI agents, along with his brother Dennis, showed up at his home with an opportunity for him to save himself. Joe refused their offer, standing firm in his decision not to become a rat. But could it be possible that despite his refusal, Joe secretly accepted their help? According to the FBI, the formal witness protection program began in 1971, the same year Joe disappeared. However,

It's known that people in the program are usually relocated with their immediate family, which would have included Joe's wife Cynthia and their son Joe.

Prior to the formal establishment of the Witness Protection Program in 1971, there was a more informal protection program in place as early as the mid-60s, and that had developed to help deal with the rise of organized crime, known at the time as the Federal Witness Protection Program. Given that, could Joe have secretly received protection or assistance from the FBI, even if it wasn't officially part of the program? As Mark delved into his uncle's case, he spoke with former FBI agents to get their perspective.

He sought answers to understand whether or not Joe could have been helped by law enforcement, even if his disappearance didn't follow the formal protocol of witness protection.

I have some friends that are in law enforcement, and I've had them review the redacted FBI file. And very interesting takes. There was a couple guys that are retired from the FBI that read it that said to me, this has our fingerprints all over it. And I said, what do you mean? Like, we've done stuff like this in the past.

Last week, Joe mentioned that the FBI seemed to be following his mother, even years after Joe's disappearance. It was a very unique comment.

If law enforcement had been involved in helping Joe vanish, Mark wondered why they would continue to expend resources tailing family members. If Joe had been secretly assisted by the FBI or another agency, would other officials have access to that information? Or would that have been a closely guarded secret, known only to a few? Mark has pondered this question for years, trying to piece together why the surveillance would persist long after Joe disappeared.

Could the FBI's actions be a clue? Did they have solid information that Joe was still alive that has never been shared?

Six months after his disappearance, from my uncle, from my dad, there was more undercover, FBI, et cetera, at the funeral of my grandfather at George Washington Cemetery in Paramus. They were everywhere waiting for my Uncle Joe to show up. That tells you that they expected him to be alive still. Otherwise, they would have not done that. Again, that conflicts with maybe they helped him get out. I don't know.

I don't know any of it, but if somebody were to get help from the government to get out, let's say, I'm certain that's not published. Only the people that need to know would know because people are people and they're going to talk. If all of a sudden everybody stopped looking for him because they got the memo, that would be telling in its own right. It's an option. I think all options have to go on the table. While Mark acknowledges that all theories deserve to be on the table, he isn't convinced that law enforcement played a role in helping his Uncle Joe escape.

I don't believe it was the FBI that helped him. That was from information from people on the outside. I believe he orchestrated this with the help of some people or person and was able to bide some time, maybe with the intention of when things calm down, come back, maybe not. I think there's that amount of time that goes by that says, man, do I disrupt everything? I don't know the answer.

Everyone had assumed that Joe would eventually resurface, but that day never came. Was he the type of person to disappear without ever reaching out, leaving his family in the dark? Mark has thought a lot about this over the years and wonders if his uncle watched from afar, choosing not to disrupt the life his wife and son had built in his absence, even if he longed to reconnect.

This is just 100% hypothetical. What if you're 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, and you see that life has moved on for them? Do you risk interrupting that life? How do you come back into that picture? Is it just

easier, for lack of a better term, to just stay away because it would do nothing but disrupt. Six months after his disappearance, his father had passed. Aunt Cynthia had to raise her son. Joe was growing up.

In hindsight, Joe believes that law enforcement viewed his father more as a fugitive than a person possibly in danger, approaching his disappearance not as a typical missing persons case, but as one involving someone actively evading the law. This perspective likely shaped the avenues they pursued at the time, narrowing the investigation and potentially overlooking other possibilities.

It doesn't seem like anybody really put a lot of man hours in looking for him. When he went missing, everybody initially assumed that he was dead. The blood was found in the car. Everybody assumed that, hey, listen, he was a mob guy and somehow he got taken out. That was just another mobster that got killed. But a couple of weeks later, when the blood analysis came back and

and showed that it wasn't his blood, that it was animal blood, I think that it kind of woke everybody up and said, hey, maybe we should find out what's going on here. But I don't think they put a lot of effort in it from the get-go. When they found that the blood wasn't his, I think maybe they put a half-hearted effort into it. I guess they realized he either ran away or was murdered. The FBI had a file on him, but it didn't seem like they had any kind of an active investigation other than they were keeping an eye on him. I think that their investigation...

was probably limited in scope to this. Let's talk to our informants, find out what everybody knows. Every police department and FBI has a ton of informants. None of the informants really had much to add. Even in his FBI file, nobody really knew anything. That was the puzzling thing.

And I guess they will keep an eye on the informants. We'll talk to informants and we will monitor his wife's comings and goings. I think that if my mother all of a sudden got on a plane and went to Florida, it would have raised the red flag or anywhere for that matter.

Over the years, Joe has made numerous attempts to gather records related to his father's disappearance. While he had some success obtaining a heavily redacted FBI file, it revealed more about the surveillance on his father prior to his disappearance than it did about the actual case. Although the information in that file has proven to be somewhat useful, beyond that, Joe has consistently hit dead ends.

One of the things that I did a while back, I wrote to the Jersey City Police Department because this car was found in Jersey City. I wrote to the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, who were the people who took over the investigation because Jersey City is in Hudson County. I wrote a letter to the Lodi Police Department because he was last seen in Lodi. And I wrote a letter to the New Jersey State Police. This is a while back I did all this stuff.

Lodi had a flood in their basement world. Those old files were kept and they lost everything. I want to say Jersey City had a fire and lost a lot of files. They think that that was amongst them. I hit dead ends everywhere I went. Nobody had any files. A lot of that information I got was from newspaper articles. Almost all of the information in the FBI file comes from informants. There was some stuff in there that was crazy.

You say, the police believe this? There were some wild stories in there that had absolutely no validity to it. But evidently, with my father's immediate bosses going to prison, one in prison and one on his way, there was people making a move on their action, their territory. The easiest way to take over a territory is get rid of all the guys who were left. And my father and his partner were two of the bigger players in that group of guys. I

I have kept track of the people that I have seen in his FBI file. I've looked them up. Everybody's gone. There was one mobster who got murdered in 1988. He went missing, and then they found his body floating in a body bag in a river a couple weeks later. And...

The New Jersey State Police ran a press release that listed all of this man's murders that they suspected him of being involved with, murders and disappearances. And my father was on that. If he was murdered, there's a chance that this guy had something to do with it. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of guys in that world that live to be old, old men. Joe has tirelessly advocated for a renewed investigation into his father's case and shared with us the progress that he's made in recent years.

I knew somebody very high up in the New Jersey State Police. They went ahead and they did open a kind of an off-the-books cold case two years ago. They were able to ascertain that my father never cooperated with any law enforcement, including the FBI or the New Jersey State Police. They were able to determine that he never went into any kind of witness protection or witness relocation programs.

If he didn't die in 1971, he could have died any time thereafter. And chances are he's certainly dead by now. He would right now be a man in his early to mid-90s. So you might be looking for somebody who's actually passed away. Chances are that if there was a John Doe, we'd be looking for a John Doe with a leg brace. They didn't do the DNA with me because of that. They

They searched all the John Does in the country, and they put in leg brace, and nobody popped up. Now, there was somebody in Canada, but I guess that they were able to determine that it wasn't him. It was tough for the police to wrap their head around. A couple of the cops that I did talk to who had looked at this case for me all said the same thing. Let's look at this from another angle and say, what evidence do we have that he was killed? Zero.

There's no evidence in that car that he was killed other than it was his car. It was as much of a mystery to the FBI and the New Jersey State Police as it is to me.

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premeditated and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber, host of Luigi, produced by Law & Crime and Twist. This is more than a true crime investigation. We explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Hey!

Finally, maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our health care system. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Okay, let's be real. Have you ever had a moment where you just said, screw it, or someone, and did something totally wild? Now imagine you just got a life-changing diagnosis, and instead of playing it safe, you throw caution to the wind and dive headfirst into a world of one-night stands, forbidden affairs, and wild adventures.

Well, that's exactly what Molly and I did in Dying for Sex, Wondery's award-winning podcast that's now streaming on a TV near you, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate. And to top it off, we are dropping brand new episodes where I, Nikki Boyer, co-host of the series, sit down with the cast to spill all the juicy secrets. We're talking steamy stories, deep friendships, and the kind of bold choices that make life worth living.

Listen to the original Dying for Sex and brand new episodes on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge the original series before anyone else and completely ad-free on Wondery Plus. When Joe convinced law enforcement to revisit his father's case, they suggested he explore commercial DNA databases. Given that his father was only 39 when he disappeared, there remained a possibility that he could have gone on to have other children. So Joe took that step and began searching.

They suggested to me that I do a 23andMe and some kind of ancestry DNA. And the rationale with that was, let's say that he relocated somewhere and he went on with his life. He was a young man. He was 39. And at 39 years old, there was still a possibility he may have more kids. Maybe I would find some kind of a link with the DNA websites. And I did it and there was nobody there.

I check 23andMe almost on a weekly basis to see if there's anybody new on there. I've done all that. Whatever it is, if he did break free from Jersey and started his life over and it involved children, those children, at least so far, aren't on any of the DNA sites that I'm on.

When we first learned that Joe Lupo had a brother in the New Jersey State Police, we were eager to discover what he may have uncovered, with the resources that he had at his disposal that most people wouldn't have access to. We hoped that Dennis had some key information. Mark shared more about his Uncle Dennis' efforts.

My Uncle Dennis was like Elliot Ness, the quintessential cop. Didn't say anything unless he had something to say. Listened, watched, loved him. From 90, let's just say 92...

on when I had the opportunity to sit with him, talk with him. At one point, I had my dad and my Uncle Dennis together. And I've got all the notes kind of in front of me, you know, family tree stuff. And just wanted to get it written down before they forgot. I can tell you my aunt, Uncle Dennis's wife, had said to me, even after my Uncle Dennis's passing, that it did hurt his career. Had

having a brother that was in organized crime. And I am certain my Uncle Joe's career was impeded a little bit by Uncle Dennis. And towards the end, I believe the last time they saw each other was very colorful. But blood's thicker than water. I can tell you when my uncle was retired...

at a New Jersey State Police, and that was in 86, 87. He had some health issues, but when we started talking about this in the early 90s, it was on his mind. I'm sure there was conversations with people. But if he knew, he never gave it up.

It seems that despite having access to many resources, Dennis also encountered roadblocks, and Joe has wondered if his uncle was deliberately kept out of the loop due to a potential conflict of interest. Perhaps his colleagues feared that Dennis may have been in contact with his brother and could tip him off if they got too close to the truth.

He would ask some questions to some of the people he knew that were involved in the investigation. He said nobody really had anything to say to him. Plus, I think that was such a hush-hush case, and he realized that there might have been a little bit of skepticism on the police part. How do we know that this guy isn't talking to his brother? Yeah, he's a cop, but this is his brother. Blood's thicker than water.

And he could have relayed information somehow, but I can assure you that that was never the case. My uncle was torn apart by this for a little while anyway. I think he maybe led his own little investigation on his own spare time. But when there was a rumor that he was in Florida, I think my uncle let it be.

If he's down there, he's down there because he wants to be. He's on the lam, as they used to call it. He doesn't want to be found right now, if that's the case. I'm not going to find somebody who doesn't want to be found right now. I would go see him maybe five times a year, and we would have lunch, and I would keep him abreast of what's going on in my life, and the conversation would always turn to my father. And when I was a young man, he would always tell me that,

It's pretty safe to assume he's dead. And then as I got older, I was more of a man. He would tell me the truth. I don't think that he died in that car. I don't think that he died that day. Could he have been murdered a week later? Yeah. Could he have had a heart attack? Sure. Maybe he had fake credentials, fake driver's license, which of course was much easier back in those days. He might've died under an assumed identity. I always accept it as a possibility.

Despite the fact that no one seemed to have any answers, stories continued to circulate through the Rooley family. Today, Mark and Joe are left wondering whether these stories are just family lore, or if there might be some truth to them. My uncle Dennis, at his house, it wasn't every Christmas, it wasn't every holiday, it just happened to be a few years later on Christmas. My aunt answered the phone when it was ringing, and she answered it like...

Merry Christmas. And there was a voice at the other end that said, how are the Rulies doing today? And she said, we're great. We're great. It's Merry Christmas. Who is this? And he said, the Rulies are good. Everybody's doing well. And she said, yes. Can I ask who this is? There was a little bit of silence. And she said, Joey. And the phone hung up. Did he try to reach out? Now, it could have been anybody. But who knows through the years of that story if it got to me accurately, because it was many years later I heard it. Take that for what it's worth.

Mark shared another intriguing story that he heard from his father. It was about a mysterious phone call that came in after the passing of Joe's mother.

When my grandmother passed, my father consistently tells that there was a phone call made to the funeral home at my grandmother's funeral. And they asked for Bobby. And it was somebody saying he wished he could be there. He cannot confirm that it was his brother. I think he wants to think it was his brother. I think he maybe couldn't hear. I don't know. But is it possible? I do believe it's possible.

One key factor that Joe consistently returns to in his investigation is the animal blood found in the car. This seems to be the sticking point for everybody. When looking at the deaths of other individuals his father worked with, Joe noted that those murders were typically carried out in public spaces and left for all to see. No elaborate cover-ups, just a direct message being sent. So if Joe had truly been murdered in 1971, why would anyone go through the effort of staging the crime scene with animal blood?

This question is central to Joe's belief that his father may have deliberately staged the scene himself. While his colleagues were distracted at the planned going-away party for one of their higher-ups, Joe may have used that window of opportunity to slip away and create a diversion that would buy him time to escape. The animal blood in the car very well could have been part of a plan to throw people off his trail and make it look like he had met a violent end, when in fact he may have chosen to disappear.

If somebody killed him, there would be no reason to put animal blood in the car. Eventually, they're going to test that blood. So whoever did that did it to buy them a little time and to stage a murder. I don't know why anybody else would want to stage his murder if they indeed did murder him. Why not just leave him there?

So you have to figure there had to be somebody else involved because somebody had to drive him away from there. And where did he go from there? I don't believe he died in his car. I do believe that he had help. I

I do believe that maybe he did make it down to Florida. But again, maybe somebody caught up with him down in Florida when they heard the rumors. Maybe they killed him down there. Maybe he lived a few years and he had a heart attack or he got cancer. I don't think that he was in Florida more than past the 70s because all of the rumors about Florida were over by 1975.

And he was a guy that if you knew him, you knew that was him. If for no other reason, because he's got a brace on and he's walking with a cane. My father walked very, very slowly.

He couldn't walk five feet without something to brace himself on. And I think that people, if you saw him, you knew it was him or not him because of that handicap that he had. The comparison that everybody gives to me is Jimmy Hoffa. But Jimmy Hoffa, I believe the reason that there was no body found ever of Jimmy Hoffa, it left no crimes to investigate. He just disappeared.

They wanted to get rid of him. But with my father, he would have been left where he died to send the message, like they did for his partner. As Dennis neared the end of his life, he began to open up more to Joe about his father, sharing his feelings of disappointment and sadness over the path that Joe had chosen. For Dennis, it was heartbreaking to see the potential in his little brother, someone who could have had a bright future, thrown away in the world of organized crime.

Dennis often spoke of how proud he was of Joe's natural talent, especially in boxing, and how much promise he had as a young man. But somewhere along the way, Joe had gotten caught up in something dangerous, something that ultimately consumed him. It was clear that Dennis still held out hope that Joe could have found a different way, one that didn't involve the mafia. These conversations with Joe revealed a side of Dennis that had been hidden for so long, a brother who deeply cared. He

even as he struggled to reconcile the man his brother had become with the boy he once knew.

One of the last times that we really had a conversation, he had said, I was always very critical of my brother, only because he had so much potential that he just didn't see it. He could have been anything. I wanted him to go to college, get a degree, go to law school. He was that smart. But you know what? I never had to walk in his shoes. This was a kid at 20 years old, had their rug pulled out from under him, defamed, disrespected.

the money, all the perks that came with being a professional athlete. My aunt Tony put it in a way that made a lot of sense. Now, she knew my father from the time he was 14. She said, Joey, you never met a more sweet kid. He was never in trouble. How does that guy, how is he in the mafia? His life really changed and

My aunt, she said it the best way. When he got sick, he could have made money in anything. And no matter how much money he made or how successful that he was, it wasn't going to bring back the celebrity that he enjoyed ever so briefly when he was fighting. He walked into a restaurant. If there wasn't a seat, they made a new table. As a wise guy or a mob guy, you have that celebrity back.

People, for whatever reason, look upon those guys, especially in those days, as celebrities. But my aunt was always convinced that's what took him down that road because that made him somebody again.

The years have passed without any new leads on what happened to Joe back in 71. Both Mark and Joe are realistic about the fact that many of the people who may have had information are likely gone. Yet they can't help but hold on to a sliver of hope. If Joe didn't die on the day he disappeared, if he truly did manage to flee, there could still be people out there who encountered him in the years that followed. Ordinary folks who may have known him from another life.

A store clerk, a waitress at a restaurant, or even a doctor's office receptionist may remember Joe. Places where people casually cross paths, without even realizing they might be connecting with someone living under a different identity. Mark and Joe have always wondered if there could be individuals out there who had met Joe, and simply never knew the full story. They imagine that some people may have noticed him, but they didn't think much of it at the time.

The chance that someone out there might hold the key to unraveling Joe's fate feels possible, even if it's a long shot. But with each passing year, the chances of uncovering that missing piece grow slimmer, and the story of Joe Lupo remains for now, a mystery locked in the past.

I have to believe when this comes out, somebody may say, "Wait a minute. I recognize that guy." I do believe that that's still out there. His personality, again, I never met my Uncle Joe. From everything, the people that I've talked to that met him, he wasn't introverted. He was a dynamic guy. He was the life of the party. He was telling the jokes.

Somebody is going to pick that up. He's not going to change who he was. Let's face it, over time, the mob isn't going to go get him. Sammy the Bull Gravano is alive in Phoenix. They can find him if they want him. It's just not worth it. And why bring attention to themselves? I've put a lot of thought into he owns some businesses, restaurants, bars, the horse track, dog track.

Do you think in 72 he became an accountant? No chance. He's going to do what he knows, just differently, meaning different name. That's 40 years of his life. He's not going to reverse tomorrow, whether it's Florida or points beyond Florida. I don't know. And I think this is great, a great opportunity to see what we might learn. Quite frankly, we might learn that in June of 1971, there was a car accident with a guy that has leg braces and he died.

But you know what? I think Joe deserves it. And my dad can go to his grave knowing, okay, this is what we've learned. I wish my uncle Dennis knew, my aunt Tony, my aunt Cynthia, his wife, my grandmother. We're losing people.

The more pieces we can put together would be amazing. The bigger the net, the more fish we're going to catch. And I've talked to Joe about it. I said, are you ready for that? Or are we all ready for that? Who knows what we might learn? But I guess knowing is better than not knowing. It's time.

It's now been 54 years since Joe vanished without a trace, but he wasn't forgotten. To honor his father, Joe placed a photo of him inside his restaurants, a small tribute to the man who had been part of his life, even if only for a brief time. Over the years, that photo became a conversation starter. Customers would ask about the man in the picture, and each time Joe spoke about his father, it reignited the questions that had never been answered.

Some people were curious because they remembered Joe from his boxing days, while others simply wanted to know the story behind the photo. Every time someone asked, it felt like a little piece of Joe's story was being shared, keeping the question of what happened to Joe Lupo alive for a new generation.

In every restaurant, I always had a picture of my father as a boxer hanging up for years, especially in the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s. I can't tell you how many people wanted to talk to me because they knew it. And the first question everybody asked me, did you ever find out what happened? Nobody ever had anything to add to it or say, hey, did you know this? People that knew him are all, they would be in their 80s or 90s. Everybody's gotten older and they're dying off.

Joe has spent his entire adult life seeking answers about his father, not only because he wants answers to the mystery of his disappearance, but also to understand the man he never truly got to know.

On one hand, Joe Lupo was deeply involved in organized crime, surrounded by dangerous people, entangled in a web of bad choices. But on the other hand, he was a local hero, a young boxer with a promising future, a man with a magnetic personality and a love for his family. He was a complex person, shaped by both his triumphs and his mistakes. What Joe has come to realize over the years is that despite the trouble his father had found himself in, Joe Lupo was loved by many.

For Joe, the search for answers has always been about more than solving a case. It's about discovering who his father truly was, beyond the mystery and the shadows of his past. And the more he learns, the more he understands that even in the midst of all the darkness, his father was someone who mattered to many, and whose legacy was far more complicated than he could have imagined.

I have a phone book size worth of newspaper clippings from all the trouble he was in through the years. People would always tell me, don't judge your father by what was in the paper. He wasn't that guy. He was that guy when he was on the street. My mother always told me I fell in love with him, not because of what he did, but because of the man that he was. He had a really, really big heart. Unfortunately,

When he got polio, his life was turned upside down. He could have went left or right, and he went the wrong way.

We speak to many children of missing persons on the show, and it's often clear that they struggle with feelings of abandonment, wondering if their parent chose to walk away and leave them behind. But Joe's perspective on this is refreshing and uniquely grounded. Instead of focusing on what might have been, or dwelling on the gap his father's absence left in his life, Joe chooses gratitude. He doesn't fixate on the life he didn't get to have with his father. Instead, he

He appreciates the life he built for himself with his wife, children, and now grandchildren. Joe recognizes that had his father not disappeared in 1971, his own trajectory in life would have likely been very different. He may not have had the same opportunities or the same drive to succeed in his own right. His story is one of resilience, acceptance, and the understanding that sometimes life's mysteries and challenges shape us in ways we might never fully understand, but can still be thankful for.

My mom died in 2015 of pancreatic cancer. I gave my mom's eulogy, and the eulogy basically said that my mother lived two lives. She lived her North Jersey life with her husband, and she lived the life of mink coats and fancy dinners. Later in life, when he was gone and she decided she needed to relocate her son from that neighborhood, the

The Broadway shows were replaced by my daughter's softball games. The fancy dinners were replaced by my son's baseball games, Little League games. My mother would have told you that the second part of her life was her favorite. When she took her last breath, she knew that everybody in her family was safe. Everybody was happy.

And a lot had to do with her making that move to get us out of there. Now, how my mother reconciled everything in her mind through the years, I'm sure it was tough on her at times, but my mother was strong. She was the strongest person I ever met. She was able to compartmentalize things. I think there's a part of me that felt kind of cheated.

of not having a father growing up and somebody to show me the way of certain things in life. In Little League, they had Father's Sunday and my mother went out there with me. It was always a little bit awkward because all my friends had fathers. Even if their parents were divorced, they still had fathers. But I have a great life. I have a beautiful wife. I have two great kids and they've each given me two grandchildren in the last six months. I've got a good life. And I'm

I don't know if I would have had all of that had my father been around. And it's really sad to say that I may have followed him into his life. I don't know.

I don't know. What he did leave me was he left me his name and he left a very interesting story. I would always want to know what happened to my father, but it's never really anything that ever consumed me. I was always curious. I was always willing to find out more information. And I say, you know what? You know, maybe him being gone actually benefited me in the long run. He might've felt that way too at some point. If he was alive, maybe this guy's better off without me.

So what happened to Joe Lupo in April 1971? The pieces of his story are both intriguing and puzzling. We know that by the time of his disappearance, Joe had been feeling the pressure. A mafia turf war was raging, and several of his associates had been targeted and killed. Joe was warned that he would be next.

In a fateful turn, Joe was offered an out by law enforcement, an opportunity to become an informant in exchange for protection. But Joe, fiercely loyal to his code, refused. He didn't see himself as someone who could betray his associates. Around the time of his disappearance, Joe had been planning a going-away party for a superior, who was about to serve time. This event was supposed to be his turning point, a chance to steer his life back to the way it was before the violence took over.

But as the party preparations were underway, Joe stepped out for what he said would be a short errand.

But Joe never returned. When his wife Cynthia arrived at the party and found that Joe was missing, she knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. She had witnessed firsthand the pressure that Joe was under, but she never imagined that the events would unfold as they did. After Joe was reported missing, his car was found in Jersey City. It was riddled with bullet holes and had a blood-stained interior. For everyone who knew Joe, it's

It seemed like the mafia had finally caught up with him. But when the blood was tested, it wasn't Joe's. It was animal blood. This discovery shifted the case from one of certain murder to the possibility that Joe had staged the scene and fled. Speculation grew that he may have escaped to Florida, but concrete evidence was elusive.

Years later, during a chance encounter, a friend from Joe's boxing days, someone who didn't even know that Joe was missing, claimed he had seen Joe at a racetrack in Florida. Was that a case of mistaken identity, or could it have been Joe himself? Other stories surfaced too, like strange phone calls from someone who could have been Joe, but still there was no definitive proof.

For decades, Joe and his cousin Mark have worked tirelessly to piece together the fragments of Joe's story. But the final piece of the puzzle remains missing. They're still searching for the answers, hoping that someone will come forward with crucial information. If it's true that Joe walked away from his mafia life in New Jersey, there must be people out there who knew him under a different identity.

Joe and Mark believe that there could still be people out there who remember him, the man with the distinctive braces, the one who was so tough to miss, who perhaps reinvented himself after escaping the dangerous life that nearly killed him. This mystery still haunts them, and so they continue their search for the truth, hoping that someone somewhere will recognize Joe Lupo and bring them one step closer to solving the enigma of his disappearance.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Joseph Joe Lupo Rulli, please contact the New Jersey State Police Missing Persons Unit at 609-882-2000, extension 2554. You may also reach out to Joe directly. His email address will be included in the episode notes.

I have actually come to an agreement with the production company to make an independent movie about this. It starts filming in November in New Jersey. It's going to be called Lupo. That's what the working title of is right now.

We talk about defining times. After that April day when he went missing in 1971, he could have been in Florida for a month and they caught up to him. Or he could have moved around Florida, moved to California and lived 30 more years. Don't know. But what I think is defining is I don't believe he died on that day in April of 1971. And I think the evidence or lack thereof points to that. And there are some stories that my Uncle Dennis had told me.

Last night I'd gotten home and I just grabbed some of the old notebooks that I had and was just reading some of the notes and some of the things that were said by my Uncle Dennis and or my father during those days together. And I don't believe my Uncle Dennis. I know my dad. I know before my mother passed. None of them believed my Uncle Joe died in 1971 in North Jersey.

But it wasn't until the visitation at my grandmother's funeral in 1992 that I met Joe. And to see what Joe has done with his life, I'm proud of him. I don't know where he finds that strength. And I'm sure, and we've had long conversations, I'm sure that there's days that aren't as good as others, but it's who he is. It's the story he's got. And I'm glad he's telling it. He's done a hell of a job.

That brings us to the end of episode 484. I'd like to thank Joe and Mark for speaking with us. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook. You can also find us on Instagram at thevanishedpodcast.com.

If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes. We'll be taking the next week off for spring break, but we'll return with a new case from Florida on Monday, May 5th. Thanks for listening. One, two, one.

If you like The Vanished, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I

I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. So I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph.

My hope is that people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.