Patty Lisa McDaniel was a teenager who vanished alongside her sister, Peggy, in 1979.
Background[]
Patty and her fraternal twin sister Peggy were born on February 6, 1962. Both girls suffered oxygen deprivation and birth that left them with mild mental disabilities. Their parents were divorced and they lived with their mother, Joyce Rivituso, in New Jersey. In their later years Joyce did send Peggy to live with her father and Stepmother in Live Oak, Florida in the hope that separating them would allow them to become more independent. However, Peggy and Patty missed each other so much that by early 1979 Patty decided to join Peggy in Florida.
That summer they had befriended a young man named Marvin Warren. When Warren and his friend, Eddie Gross, moved to Pompano Beach, Florida the twins went with them. Both Patty and Peggy got jobs in Pompano Beach and all four of them lived in an apartment Gross was renting. Although, letters the girls sent their mother indicated that they wanted to return home for unspecified reasons.
Case[]
Patty and Peggy were last seen alongside a 25-year-old man named Nelson George Johnson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on September 15, 1979. They had been planning to go to a disco by the name of "The Plank" that night. Peggy had reported Patty missing several days earlier and she had just reappeared that day. Johnson confronted Gross and accused him of hiding Patty during the time she was missing but the outcome of this is unclear.
Johnson was found deceased in the trunk of a car four days later. He died of a gunshot wound and vehicle had been wiped clean of fingerprints. A briefcase containing $1,100 in cash was also missing. Johnson's murder remains unsolved. Neither Patty nor Peggy has been seen since.
When Joyce received letters from Patty and Peggy wherein they expressed a desire to return home she became concerned and said she would fly to Florida and meet them at the airport as soon as possible. They never responded to her letter and because they didn't include a phone number to reach them, only a mailing address, she was unable to communicate with them directly. She did send a second letter but again received no response. As a result, she called the Pompano Beach Police Department and asked the to perform a welfare check on her daughters. It was at this point she was told they may have witnessed a murder.
There was an unconfirmed sighting of Patty and Peggy at a truck stop on the Florida Turnpike. The woman who worked at the stop took in the girls and allowed them to live with her for an unspecified period of time as they had told her they were being stalked and she was worried about them. While they stayed with her they expressed a desire go to their uncle's home in Vero Beach, Florida; the McDaniels did have an uncle in Vero Beach. One day the girls simply vanished with no explanation, taking their belongings with them.
The next year, an unidentified man broke into the twins' father's home and took only their clothes. Joyce doesn't believe the burglar was Patty or Peggy though as they possessed keys to the house and could have easily got in by simply unlocking the door. She thinks that the burglar may have been someone attempting to create the illusion that her daughters were alive and had disappeared of their own accord.
Joyce believes Patty and Peggy are deceased.
Characteristics[]
- Brown hair.
- Blue eyes.
- She was blind in her right eye.
- Her upper right front tooth was cracked.
- She had previously fractured her lower right arm.
- She had a mild intellectual disability.
- She wore glasses.
Sources[]
- Patty McDaniel at the Charley Project
- Patty McDaniel at NamUs
- Patty McDaniel at NCMEC
- Patty McDaniel at the Doe Network