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On the morning of Sunday, September 13th, 1992, 27-year-old Susan Taraskiewicz was working an overnight shift at one of the country's busiest airports. She was the baggage supervisor for Northwest Airlines at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Earlier in her shift, Susan offered to go pick up sandwiches for some of her overnight crew members. She pulled away from the airport grounds in her sky-blue Toyota Tercel sometime around midnight.
The next morning, on Monday, September 14th, a manager for Bravo Automotive, located almost four miles from Logan Airport in the town of Revere, headed into work around 7:30. He noticed a vehicle in the service center's parking lot with, what appeared to be blood, dripping from the trunk. When police arrived, they discovered the brutally beaten body of a young woman inside the trunk of a sky-blue Toyota car. It was Susan Taraskowitz.
Police first thought Susan's murder to be a random act of violence, but soon the investigation revealed a much deeper conspiracy. Was Susan a target? It's been 30 years since Susan's murder, and nobody has been held responsible. But investigators believe somebody out there knows what happened. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Susan Taraskowicz on Dark Down East.
Susan Taraskiewicz, often called Sue, grew up in Saugus, Massachusetts with her sister, brother, and her parents, Ron and Marlene. Her friends and family say she was feisty, but also just as warm and compassionate. In her high school years, she loved roller skating, running track, and art. She was remembered as a kind and quiet student at Saugus High School, where she graduated in 1983.
She had a love for the Charles Schultz character Snoopy and collected memorabilia that filled her bedroom. She herself was an aspiring cartoonist, and she briefly attended art school in Boston, even flying out to San Francisco to meet Charles Schultz himself.
Susan ultimately landed a job with Northwest Airlines. Although she was often challenged as a woman in the male-dominated airline industry, Sue never shied away from advocating for herself and her abilities. However, the treatment she reportedly endured while employed there was brutal.
Throughout her employment with Northwest Airlines, Susan was repeatedly subjected to harassment by male coworkers. Matthew Brellis wrote in the Boston Globe that there were times she was verbally accosted. There were obscene drawings plastered across the cargo compartments of the planes, Brellis reported. She'd found a drawing on her locker of a coffin. Her name was written on it. Her car had also been vandalized in the parking lot while she was at work.
In another piece for the Boston Globe, staff writer Tom Coakley reported that Susan filed a formal complaint with her union in early 1992, claiming, quote, unfair treatment in the awarding of supervisory assignments, end quote, after she was passed over for a promotion in favor of a lesser qualified male coworker.
When Susan was eventually promoted to baggage supervisor, she became the first female to ever hold that position for Northwest Airlines at Logan Airport.
Susan was a trailblazer for women in the airline industry. According to her mother Marlene in an interview with Marky Vogler of the Sagas Advocate, Susan had also tested to become a firefighter, Susan was planning for her future. And while she made sure her options included not only Northwest Airlines, Susan was clearly not intimidated by the idea of entering into another male-dominated industry.
It was reported that just before Susan left to pick up sandwiches for her co-workers on the night before her disappearance, she received a phone call. In the Bangor Daily News, Jay Lindsey reported that no one knows who was on the other end of the line, but Marlene believes her daughter was going to meet whoever called, but that she wouldn't have gone alone. After that phone call, Susan was never seen alive again.
Susan's mother was at the Saugus Police Department preparing to report her daughter as missing when an officer asked Marlene to come inside and speak with the chief of police. In an interview with Mara Montalbano for Inside Edition, Marlene struggled to describe the moment she learned her daughter's body had been found discovered in her car. Marlene was confused and struggled to process the information when the chief told her that Susan had been murdered.
Although Susan's time card had been punched back in and out the day before as though she had finished her shift, Susan had in fact never even returned to work that Sunday morning after leaving to pick up lunch. Nobody at Northwest Airlines reported her missing until she failed to come in for her next shift.
The initial theory was that Susan's murder was the result of a random act of violence. However, it didn't take long for that theory to be tossed. Kevin Cullen and Jordana Hunter of the Boston Globe reported that the state of Susan's body indicated the attack seemed personal, not random. The investigation turned to those closest to Susan, but even that direction wasn't convincing.
Susan had recently broken up with her longtime boyfriend, but friends told the Boston Globe reporters Tom Coakley and Chris Reedy that the breakup was mutual. Susan and her ex-boyfriend had even stayed friends. As the investigation into her murder continued, Susan's parents laid their daughter to rest. Photographs of her life, including some with her former boyfriend, were showcased during her funeral. Fittingly, a Snoopy doll rested near the casket.
Within days of Susan's murder, news outlets began reporting on a possible new lead in the death of Susan Taraskowicz. According to a 1993 article in the Boston Globe, an undercover Secret Service agent had been working at the Northwest Terminal during the time Susan worked as a supervisor. Authorities were investigating a credit card theft scam that had been traced from the mob back to Northwest Airlines baggage workers.
An unnamed law enforcement source referred to Logan Airport as "Crime City USA" and stated that "most of the illegal activity occurring at Logan is mob-sanctioned." These activities, it was believed, were being run from East Boston, Winthrop and Revere, where Susan's body had been discovered.
John Element and Matthew Brellis reported in the Boston Globe just days after Susan's body was found that a federal investigation involving alleged credit card theft involved newly issued credit cards being intercepted by employees at Logan Airport. But a source for the same report stressed that Susan was not involved in the scandal. Susan had never been questioned and had never been considered a suspect.
Instead, Friend said that if Susan had known of any illegal activities involving her employees at Northwest Airlines, quote, she would not have been intimidated into keeping silent, end quote. Investigators worked feverishly to connect something, anything to Susan's murder to make sense of it, but they were simply unable to make anything stick.
A year after Susan's death, her mother, Marlene, decided it was finally time to pack up Susan's bedroom. While clearing out Sue's closet, Marlene found a diary. Inside Susan's diary was a record of the sexual harassment and verbal threats Susan had endured going back to 1989. Susan had never told anyone outside of work about these incidents.
Marlene shared some of the entries with Inside Edition during her interview with Mara Montalbano. One entry included a male employee taking Susan's radio from her and throwing it against a wall multiple times until it was rendered completely useless.
Then, he made threats against her boyfriend's life. Susan wrote about another incident when she discovered vulgar graffiti written about her in the locker room. She reported the graffiti to her Northwest Airlines management team, later documenting in her diary how they advised her to handle the situation. According to Susan's diary, management told her, don't let these people know that it bothers you. Just sit back and ignore it.
After a change in Susan's duties that included cleaning toilets, Susan started to believe that she was being punished for reporting the harassment. In 1994, Susan's parents won a legal suit that allowed them to file a claim with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and sue Northwest Airlines for sexual harassment and sexual discrimination on Susan's behalf based on the contents of her diary.
To help propel the case forward, co-workers of Susan submitted affidavits confirming the harassment and their belief that Susan was the target of that harassment. The North Adams transcript reported that Herbert Holtz, the family's attorney, said that Susan, quote, was particularly singled out, and I think it's because she was the one who was trying to pierce the glass ceiling. She became a lightning rod, end quote.
Northwest Airlines tried to fight the claim with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, saying that because Susan had been dead for longer than six months, their standard grievance period, the suit could not be filed. A judge, however, allowed the suit to go forward. A year later, Northwest Airlines settled with the Taraskowicz family.
In a 1995 Boston Globe article by Matthew Brellis, it was reported that Northwest Airlines agreed to pay at least $75,000 to the family and provide a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Susan's killer. The family's attorney strongly believed that Susan's murder was in some way tied to the sexual harassment she endured while working at Northwest Airlines.
The lead prosecutor in the case said of the reward money, quote, now there is a real motive for someone to come forward and help us out, end quote. But even after several years, nobody ever did.
In a 1995 piece for the Boston Globe, Judy Rakowski reported that a former baggage handler at Northwest Airlines named Joseph Nuzzo had pled guilty to mail theft and credit card fraud, among other felonies connected to the credit card theft ring involving 10 Northwest Airlines baggage handlers.
The name was familiar to investigators in Susan's case. Susan had written about him in her diary, alleging he was a perpetrator of the sexual harassment and verbal abuse she'd endured at Logan Airport. Investigators previously questioned some of Northwest Airlines' former baggage handlers during Susan's murder investigation, and their statements raised suspicion around the same man.
During the 1992 murder investigation, another former baggage handler named Robert Brooks lied to authorities about his interactions with Joseph Nezzo. Brooks, who lived in Minnesota at the time of Susan's death, told investigators back then that he had spoken to Joseph Nezzo only once sometime in the week after Susan was murdered.
Patricia Nealon reported in the Boston Globe that "Documents obtained by authorities show that Brooks and Nuzzo had, in fact, spoken three times, including a 22-minute telephone conversation on the day Susan was killed." According to 1998 court documents, Brooks was the individual who smashed Susan's radio in that 1989 incident she recorded in her diary.
Nealon also reported that after Nuzzo was fired from his job at Northwest Airlines in 1989, he blamed Susan, harassed her, and told others that he would get his revenge. When Nuzzo was reinstated to his position after a six-month unpaid probationary period, he continued to harass and try to intimidate Susan. He even keyed her car and slashed her tires.
When Nuzzo emerged as the prime suspect in the credit card theft ring among Northwest baggage handlers, he believed Susan had been the one to out the scam to police. In 1998, Robert Brooks pled guilty to obstruction of justice, admitting for a plea deal to having lied to a grand jury investigating Susan's murder about his conversations with Joseph Nuzzo.
Brooks was sentenced to 15 months. After serving his time, he moved back to Minnesota. Jay Lindsey reported for the Bangor Daily News in 2002 that Brooks took a plea deal. As part of that deal, he was not required to answer any questions about Susan's case. Joseph Nuzzo was convicted of his role in the credit card scam and sentenced to 37 months in prison.
He returned to his home in Peabody, Massachusetts after his release. Peter DeMarco and Kathleen Burge of the Boston Globe quoted Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley as saying, Mr. Nuzzo has not been ruled out as a suspect, nor has anyone been ruled in as a suspect. End quote.
In 2002, on the 10th anniversary of Susan's murder, the Suffolk County District Attorney released photographs of a necklace that Susan was likely wearing when she was killed. It was a 16-inch gold chain with serpentine links and several charms, including a medallion with the face of Christ, a crucifix with Christ's body, and a figure of Snoopy. The necklace itself has never been found.
But it's unique and specific enough, especially the charm of Susan's beloved Snoopy, that police hope somebody out there might have information about it. Maybe someone has seen it or knows where it is. Investigators hope that any information about Susan's necklace might help solve this crime.
In 1996, Judy Rakowski wrote for the Boston Globe that Marlene believed Susan was in heaven and that she was at peace. However, Ron, Susan's father, quietly responded, quote, I'm not at peace. I'm enraged. End quote. Ron and Marlene's marriage suffered from the strain of Susan's death. They divorced and Ron moved back to Florida.
Their son, Ronald Jr., died in 2007 and Ronald Sr. in 2011. Marlene eventually moved back to Peabody, where she and Ron originally started their family.
In 2012, during a memorial held on the 20th anniversary of Susan's death, District Attorney Daniel Conley introduced Marlene to those in attendance. He said about Marlene, quote, "...her persistence and commitment to seeing justice done in this case has been an inspiration to everyone in my office. She has never, ever given up hope that it will be solved and that her daughter's killer or killers will one day be held accountable."
Susan's friends and family have kept Susan's memory alive with fundraisers, charity events, and vigils. A memorial scholarship in Susan's name has been awarded to students from Saugus High School. In 2017, Susan's loved ones gathered in World Series Park for a candlelight vigil where people sang songs and shared stories about Susan's life.
When Northwest Airlines merged with Delta Airlines in 2008, Delta agreed to continue offering the $250,000 reward for information leading up to the arrest and conviction of Susan's killer or killers. Marlene told Marky Vogler of the Saugus Advocate that she believes that any individuals involved in the credit card scam at Northwest Airlines could still be considered suspects until Susan's killer is brought to justice.
For years, Marlene has picketed the former Northwest Airlines terminal on the anniversary of Susan's death. She shares her story with travelers and reminds Susan's colleagues of the $250,000 reward. She was a devout Christian, just as Marlene is today, and Marlene draws on her faith that Susan's case will one day be solved, that someone, someday, will want to clear their conscience of what they know.
She told Marky Vogler of the Saugus Advocate, quote, The Saugus Advocate quoted Jake Wark, the spokesperson for the District Attorney's Homicide Unit, saying, quote,
This year, 2022, marks 30 years since Susan Taraskiewicz's life was stolen.
Massachusetts State Police, along with the Massachusetts Department of Correction and District Attorney's offices, have released a deck of playing cards. Each deck features the face of an unresolved case in Massachusetts. This method for sharing information about unsolved homicides and missing persons cases has been used before in other states, and Massachusetts State Police hope that they will generate new leads and information in long-standing investigations.
Susan's smiling face is on the eight of spades. From the Massachusetts State Police, quote,
End quote.
If you have any information about the 1992 murder of Susan Taraskowicz, please contact the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit for Suffolk County at 1-617-727-8817. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. This episode was researched and written by Dena Norman, with the additional writing, production, and editing support by me, Kylie Lowe.
Sources for this episode include reporting in the Boston Globe, the Saugus Advocate, WWLP News, original case documents, and more. Additional sources for this episode are listed at darkdowneast.com. If you have a personal connection to a New England case that deserves attention or want to honor the life of a loved one stolen by violent crime, please send me an email at hello at darkdowneast.com.
Thank you for supporting the show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.
