REOPENED: Vanished In Virginia

Summary

Cold Case Files: REOPENED – Vanished in Virginia

Podcast: Cold Case Files (A&E / PodcastOne)
Episode Date: July 9, 2026
Narrator: Marisa Pinson

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode revisits the baffling 1995 disappearance of Lisa Gaudenzi, a devoted mother, army recruit, and ambitious future JAG officer, who vanished from Fort Lee, Virginia on her first day of officer training. For over a decade, her case remained cold, shrouded in family tragedy, local suspicion, and a web of deception. Thanks to relentless family advocacy, determined investigators, and the perseverance of a new prosecutor, Lisa’s story is one of the rare 1% of cold cases that are eventually solved.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Lisa’s Disappearance and Early Investigations

• Background: Lisa Gaudenzi, determined to join the JAG Corps, is reported AWOL after failing to attend officer training at Fort Lee (01:53).
• Family’s Alarm: Her family immediately senses foul play, knowing Lisa would never abandon her children or her dreams (03:24–04:45).
• Initial Police Response:
  • The army discharges Lisa for being absent, reinforcing an early narrative that she deserted voluntarily (17:49–18:46).
  • Caroline County Sheriff’s Department treats the matter as a standard missing person case, discouraged by lack of evidence and resources (17:13–19:09).

2. Personal History and Family Dynamics

• Lisa’s Early Years: Raised in a privileged but later fractured home, Lisa overcomes childhood adversity, including a debilitating car accident (03:24–04:45).
• Motherhood and Relationships:
  • First marriage to Jim Burdett ends after their daughter Leah’s diagnosis of cystic fibrosis (05:28–06:10).
  • Meets and marries Lawrence Cadenzi, her second husband; they have a daughter, Shelby (later Logan) (06:42–07:17).
  • Lisa’s life is defined by her ambition, resilience, and love for her children (07:31–08:11).

3. A Secret Affair Emerges

• Discovery of Love Letters:
  • During the investigation, police find passionate letters from Lisa to a man named Israel, revealing a secret romantic relationship (09:17–10:26).
  • This briefly turns suspicion towards Israel, until he is cleared (13:03–14:46).
• Notable Quote:

  “I look forward to sharing my life with you… I have finally found the man for me and I can’t be with him.”
  — Lisa Gaudenzi [letter], read at (09:17–09:54)

4. Suspicion Grows Around Lawrence Cadenzi

• Inconsistencies in Lawrence’s Story:

  • Lawrence claims to have dropped Lisa at a Richmond bus station—a detour that makes little sense given proximity to Fort Lee (21:10–21:34).

• Lawrence’s Disappearance:

  • Lawrence flees with their daughter, changes his identity to Randy Evans, and starts a new life, arousing further suspicion (22:18–24:48).
  • Remarkably, the real Randy Evans also vanishes (23:08–23:32).

• Family’s Frustration:

  “He changed his phone number, changed the name on the account. That’s when the ball started to roll.”
  — Nancy Mardo (19:15)

• Notable Law Enforcement Insight:

  “He dropped her off at a bus station… It was only another 30 minutes to Fort Lee. Why would you drive someone 45 minutes to a bus station to take a half hour bus trip?”
  — Tony Spencer, Commonwealth Attorney (21:10)

5. The Long Road to Justice

• Years of Advocacy:
  • Lisa’s parents never give up. They hire private investigators, lobby the media, and even appeal to the President (29:59).
  • The army’s quick move to discharge Lisa further complicates the case, reinforcing police complacency (18:50).
• Key Turning Point:
  • New Commonwealth Attorney Tony Spencer is convinced by the family’s persistence to investigate with fresh eyes in 2008 (30:54).

  “A good prosecutor will not shy away from tough cases.”
  — Tony Spencer (30:54)

6. Breakthrough Evidence

• Patterns of Abuse:
  • Testimony emerges about Lawrence’s controlling, abusive behavior—toward Lisa and their daughter Logan (28:23–29:12).
• Basement Tenant's Testimony:
  • After years of fear, a former tenant reveals witnessing Lawrence remove a heavy green bag—presumed to contain Lisa’s body—into the woods, shortly after Lisa’s disappearance (38:19–38:44).

  “Lawrence didn’t know that she had seen him… carrying a big green bag that he could hardly carry… came back without the bag.”
  — Special Agent T.C. Collins, recounting the tenant’s statement (38:19)

• Physical Evidence:
  • Renovations at the shared home uncover a massive Clorox-stained area, suggestive of substantial cleanup (36:38–37:08).
  • An audio tape recorded by Lisa’s first husband, Jim Burdett, shortly after her disappearance, captures Lawrence giving shifting accounts of Lisa’s fate (34:29–35:14).

7. Prosecution and Conviction

• Arrest and Trial:
  • With new eyewitness testimony and corroborating circumstantial evidence, Lawrence is indicted for Lisa’s murder 14 years after her disappearance (40:22). He pleads guilty to second-degree murder and is sentenced to 25 years (40:46).
• Still-Missing Clues:
  • The fate of the real Randy Evans (whose identity Lawrence assumed) remains unsolved (41:40).
• Lisa’s Remains:
  • In 2010, police recover only Lisa’s dental bridge—her sole physical remains—after Lawrence claims he disposed of her body in acid (43:23).

8. Aftermath and Reflections

• Family’s Closure:
  • Lisa is finally memorialized in a military cemetery; her family lobbies for her name to be restored (43:55–44:23).
• Enduring Trauma:
  • Lisa’s daughter Logan shares the lasting impact of growing up in the shadow of loss and violence:

    “I lived with a murderer for 13 years. I will never have the relationship I should have with my sister… It definitely changed everything.”
    — Logan Durienzo (44:23)

  • Nancy Mardo’s final words resonate with the cost of the family’s ordeal:

    “Through the whole process, we grieved a lot… Nobody should have to go through this.”
    — Nancy Mardo (44:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Summary | |---------------|-------------|-------------------| | 01:12 | Logan Durienzo | “My mom was everything you could dream of… There was 13 years where this case was not solved… this whole story is just too crazy.” | | 09:17–09:54 | Lisa Gaudenzi (letters) | "You are still always on my mind. I look forward to sharing my life with you…" | | 19:15 | Nancy Mardo | “We tried calling Lawrence… he changed his phone number. Changed the name on the account. That's when the ball started to roll.” | | 21:10 | Tony Spencer | “Why would you drive someone 45 minutes to a bus station to take a half hour bus trip?” | | 29:59 | Nancy Mardo | “We left no stone unturned. We knew Lisa was dead. We knew Lawrence killed her.” | | 30:54 | Tony Spencer | “I am a believer that a good prosecutor will not shy away from tough cases.” | | 38:19–38:44 | Special Agent T.C. Collins | “He went out for about 10 minutes into the woods and came back and didn’t have the bag with him.” | | 44:23 | Logan Durienzo | “I lived with a murderer for 13 years … It definitely changed everything.” | | 44:39 | Nancy Mardo | “Through the whole process, we grieved a lot. Not just when it was over… Nobody should have to go through this.” |

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Important Timestamps

• 01:12–04:45: Lisa’s background, family, and early disappearances
• 08:21–13:03: Investigation focuses on the love affair and Lisa’s relationships
• 13:03–15:57: Police investigation, focus on Lawrence and Israel
• 17:13–19:27: Family’s frustration with local law enforcement; Lawrence disappears
• 21:10–24:48: Tony Spencer deconstructs Lawrence’s alibi, discovery of false identity
• 28:23–29:12: Testimonies of abuse and controlling behavior
• 30:54–33:54: New prosecution team, building a circumstantial case
• 38:19–39:46: Tenant’s eyewitness account breaks the case open
• 40:22–41:40: Arrest, trial, conviction; fate of Lisa’s remains
• 44:23–44:39: Family’s reflections and the human toll

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Themes and Tone

The tone is haunting but determined, echoing the pain and resilience of Lisa’s family. The episode navigates the emotional and investigative valleys of a cold case, weaving together familial testimony, procedural breakthroughs, and persistent community doubt. Themes of domestic violence, bureaucratic setbacks, identity, and unwavering familial love pervade the narrative.

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Resources

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE or visit thehotline.org.

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For further details and additional cases, visit Cold Case Files on aetv.com.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

this episode contains descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.

[Logan Durienzo]

My mom was everything you could dream of. Sometimes I get told, you know, you look like Lisa, or maybe you act like Lisa. She was an amazing mom, amazing daughter, amazing sister. She was just an all around amazing person. I don't think my life will ever be normal. With everything that has happened in my life, I think I'll always question if I'm safe and if I can trust people. There was 13 years where this case was not solved. I would love people to understand in a situation like this that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This whole story is just too crazy. None of it could be real because it's too crazy.

[Narrator]

There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's a cold morning in the military town of Fort Lee, Virginia on January 28, 1995. The army recruits are about to begin officer training school. And among the names on the list is 30 year old Lisa Gaudenzi. Lisa's stepmother, Nancy Mardo, knows how much this day means to Lisa.

[Nancy Mardo]

Lisa wanted to be a judge. They only take the brightest people out of the class and she was happy that she was going into the service.

[Narrator]

But by mid morning, all of the new officer trainees have reported to their barracks except one. The army immediately classifies Lisa as awol, completing her Officer training would give Lisa the opportunity to go to law school through the military and become an officer in the Judge Advocate General Corps, also known as as JAG Corps. It was a dream come true for Lisa and her family knows she wouldn't miss it for the world.

[Nancy Mardo]

She wanted to do her time in officers training and for us not to hear anything, nothing. We knew something happened at that point. I was Lisa's stepmother. I was married to her father Joseph. I treated Lisa like she was my daughter. She was a daughter I never had. She grew up in New Jersey. Lisa grew up in an influential family. Very well to do. Her father Jo was very well off with businesses. Joe had wig factories in Europe and multiple beauty shops across the United States. Had them for quite a few years. Lisa was very smart. Her and her sister went to Montessori. They went to school in a Rolls Royce. That's how Lisa was raised until the divorce. I don't think Lisa or her sister were happy with the divorce. They used to come to Atlantic City and visit their father in the summertime. Joe was a very doting father. Joe had told me they had a big pool in the backyard and Lisa used to love to swim. At the age of three she jumped in this pool and she started swimming. She was outgoing when I met her years earlier when she was 10. The older she got, the more ambitious Lisa got. But once she had the car accident, she became very self conscious.

[Narrator]

As a result of the accident, Lisa needed to have a spot special dental plate fitted. And the lasting scars on her face impacted her self esteem.

[Nancy Mardo]

She went through the windshield and at the age of 16 going to high school, you know that's not good for your ego. Going to school with new scars or bandages on your face and no teeth in the bottom of your mouth. When Lisa graduated from high school, she moved down to West Palm to be with her mother and her sister. They were living down in Florida at the time. She wind up getting a job in an auto body shop. Most women couldn't be bothered. But it didn't bother Lisa to get down and dirty, paint the car, sand the car down. She had no problem doing that. Lisa's working in the auto body shop and who's working in there also is Jim. Jim was her boss. They started the date and one thing led to another.

[Narrator]

After A whirlwind romance, 21 year old Lisa married 24 year old Jim Burdett in 1985. A year later they welcomed a baby girl they named Leah.

[Nancy Mardo]

Leah was born with cystic fibrosis. It's a lung disease that's incurable. Your lungs are filled with fluid. When Leah was diagnosed with it back then, they gave her a four to five year span of living. Over the years, though with her medications, her span of life is a lot

[Narrator]

longer now case expert Rachel Fitzpatrick recalls the impact that caring for a sick child had on Lisa's marriage.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

It caused a lot of difficulties in the relationship between Lisa and Jim. All of her energy and her attention was focused on Leah and her education and the marriage was over. They were not functioning as a married couple for a long time before they ultimately did get divorced in 1989.

[Narrator]

Following the divorce, Lisa and Leah leave Florida and move to Reuther Glenn in Carolyn County, Virginia. It's here that Lisa first meets tow truck driver Lawrence Cadenzi.

[Nancy Mardo]

She thought he was good looking. He took her out to dinner. Lisa was, you know, smitten.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Lawrence was very involved in the Mormon Church and they moved in together into a house that was rented to them by the bishop of that church. So it was a very quiet, religious rural area.

[Narrator]

Before long, their family grows.

[Nancy Mardo]

Lisa said to me, guess what? And I knew what she was going to say that she was pregnant. She was ecstatic.

[Narrator]

Lisa and Lawrence name their daughter Shelby and the couple gets married shortly after.

[Nancy Mardo]

Lawrence was thrilled. He wanted a little boy, but she was a little girl and he was tickled pink. Lisa was over the moon. She's a mother again. Now she has her two children. She's extremely happy.

[Narrator]

With an idyllic family life, Lisa sets out to achieve her next goal. Her first step towards her dream job is enlisting in the army, which she did in 1994.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Lisa's goal was to be a lawyer and a judge. She was going to make that work by joining the army, going to school and becoming a JAG judge.

[Narrator]

Her schedule is so demanding that she sends 8 year old Leah to Florida to live with her grandmother. Lawrence stays in Virginia with her two year old Shelby. They also rent their basement out to a tenant who helps out with the cooking and cleaning while Lisa works and studies.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Lisa's goal was to be a wife and a mother. She was going to make that work with Lawrence Gienzi.

[Narrator]

It's January 29, 1995. One day since Lisa was classed as AWOL at Fort Lee, the military police start a search for the missing mother of two.

[Nancy Mardo]

The MPs showed up at Lawrence's house and they also showed up at the mother's house in the Keys looking for Lisa.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Lawrence filed a missing persons report on Lisa with the Caroline County Sheriff's department. He told them that he had dropped Lisa off at the bus station in Richmond to go to officer training school, and that was the last time he saw her.

[Narrator]

When deputies search through Lisa's belongings, they find something that may explain her disappearance. Love letters not addressed to her husband Lawrence, but to a man named Israel. The letters appear to show a budding romance between Lisa and Israel.

[Lisa Gaudenzi (via letters)]

Israel, you are still always on my mind. I look forward to sharing my life with you, but it is really hard having to wait. I have waited so long for happiness and now I have finally found the man for me and I can't be with him. I know we will have plenty of time to be together, but I hate wasting four months of my life without you. I have already wasted 30 years. Every night before I fall asleep, I think about laying in your arms. I miss going to sleep with you next to me. I don't ever want to be away from you for such a long time again. Good night, my love. Lisa,

[Narrator]

Former prosecutor and author of no Body Homicide Cases, Tad Dias wonders if the letters hint at what happened to Lisa.

[Tad Dias]

She didn't show up for training. Did she meet someone along the way? The police really have to keep their minds open for all possibilities. She was seemingly moving forward in her life, possibly without Lawrence. It was something she clearly wanted to do.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

That's the way Lisa was. She got very swept up in the romance and the idea of being in love.

[Tad Dias]

That was a big red flag for the investigators on this case.

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[Narrator]

Any potential romantic partner becomes a person of interest when it comes to a missing persons investigation. The letters point towards a man in Big Pine Key, Florida. Senior special agent with the Virginia State Police, Doc Lyons reveals what the investigators know about the budding affair.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

It became obvious that Lisa had met an individual down in Florida. She met him on a break that she had from her military training. They used to go dancing and things like that, which kind of made you wonder that maybe she had run off with Israel.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Lisa wrote to Israel several times, very lengthy letters about missing him and future plans they might make and how wonderful life would be.

[Narrator]

The letters illustrate just how deeply Lisa's feelings for Israel run Israel I can't

[Lisa Gaudenzi (via letters)]

sleep, probably because all I have done for the past four days is sleep. Also because I lay awake thinking of things I want to ask you and of things I want to talk to you about and thinking about us. I don't care where we live or even if we have to sleep on a couch as long as we can sleep together. So what do you want to do when I come down for the weekend? I would love to just lock ourselves in a room for a few days, but I do want to make plans for us to do something with Leah. Until then. Love, Lisa.

[Narrator]

Two days after Lisa vanishes, police find Israel at his home in Florida. It quickly becomes clear that he has no knowledge of Lisa's disappearance.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

The police determined that this was not that serious of a relationship that he had been in Florida and had nothing to do with since she had been there for Christmas other than receiving her letters.

[Narrator]

Back in Virginia, the Sheriff's department interviews the Gadenzi's basement tenant.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

The basement tenant was there the last evening that Lawrence and Lisa were together in the home. The basement tenant backed Lawrence's story up that they were indeed home together and that Lawrence had left with Lisa to take her to officer training school. The Sheriff's department accepted the basement tenant's word and viewed it more as a missing persons case than something that needed further investigating.

[Narrator]

Lisa's family fears that this might be more than a missing persons case, but the Cadenzi's neighbors and reuther Glenn aren't so sure.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

When this case first began, it was really more about the community wrapping itself around Lawrence, who was the victim of this woman who ran off and broke his heart and left him as a single parent.

[Narrator]

News of Lisa's disappearance quickly reaches her first husband, Jim Burdett, who makes his way to Carolyn county to speak with Lawrence. Lawrence tells Jim that he believes Lisa has been planning to leave and take their daughter Shelby with her, just as she had done when she she took Leah away from Jim years earlier.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

I think that Lawrence and Jim Burdett established some kind of bond over their shared dismay of having a broken relationship with Lisa Marto.

[Narrator]

Two weeks have passed since Lisa was reported missing and Lisa's father and stepmother have to turn their attention to a custody battle brought by their granddaughter's fathers.

[Nancy Mardo]

Those two go to court for custody of the girls and we hire an attorney. We fought for both girls and we got actual physical custody of Leah and only phone visitation with Shelby. That's what we wind up with. We were just amazed that this was happening.

[Narrator]

Lawrence starts over with his daughter Shelby and without Lisa. Meanwhile, the search for the missing mom stalls and Lisa's father Joe and her stepmother Nancy have a new fight on their hands.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Joe and Nancy Mardo called that sheriff's department quite a bit and begged and begged and begged them to investigate. And Joe and Nancy Mardo Were really met with a brick wall.

[Nancy Mardo]

The sheriff's department in Caroline county told us there's not much they can do. She's over 18. She can do what she wants. We talk to Lawrence. And she's done this before? Well, yeah, she did it before, but everybody knew where she was. It wasn't like she disappeared off the face of the earth.

[Narrator]

Lisa's father, Joe Marto, mounts a campaign to find his daughter. He hires his own private investigator and begins posting signs all over Caroline county and near the bus station in Richmond where Lawrence said he dropped her off. Joe and Nancy grow increasingly frustrated with the sheriff's office when it seems that the police are not doing anything to help.

[Nancy Mardo]

We wanted to know something. It just wasn't moving fast enough. We weren't getting any answers from the sheriff's department. The private investigator, he put up missing pictures of her. They talked to different neighbors. The private investigator said that the house should be searched, but they don't have enough probable cause. The ground should be searched, but they don't have enough probable cause. We never became complacent about it. At night, we'd go to sleep. We'd have a pen and paper on our nightstand in case we thought of something in the middle of the night. It just never left. It never went away.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

She would have never run off and abandoned those two girls.

[Tad Dias]

The army ended up dishonorably discharging Lisa because she didn't show up for training. And that can be an example of the police saying, well, the army is treating it as if she didn't show up. So how do we know what really happened in this case?

[Narrator]

Soon there's more bad news for the Martos when they attempt to speak with Lisa's husband, Lawrence.

[Nancy Mardo]

We tried calling Lawrence to talk to him, and he changed his phone number. Changed the phone number, changed the name on the account. That's when the ball started to roll.

[Narrator]

The sheriff's department agrees to speak with Lawrence Gudenzi. They ask Lawrence to take a polygraph examination, and he agrees. Special Agent T.C. collins with the Virginia State police explains the events that follow.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

At first he agreed. He didn't show up. His excuse was he was sick. Ended up occurring as he left town. Nobody knew where he went. No forwarding address.

[Narrator]

Lawrence disappears and takes Shelby with him.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Caroline county is a very rural, small area with a small police department, and they just did not have the resources to investigate and now look for Lawrence and Shelby. So they decided ultimately to turn it over to the state police.

[Narrator]

It's now January 1997. Two years after Lisa Cadenzi disappeared, there

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

was enough information to take a fresh look at this case. Joe and Nancy Mardo had established a really good relationship with the detectives who were investigating this case. And they took Joe and Nancy very seriously and they really began investigating from scratch.

[Narrator]

The state police discover that a lot of what Lawrence had said in his original account about dropping Lisa off at a bus station in Richmond didn't really make sense. When Lisa went missing, the investigators had no reason to focus on Lawrence or his story. But now that he has also vanished, they take a second look. Carolyn County Commonwealth Attorney Tony Spencer breaks down Lawrence's version of events.

[Tony Spencer]

He dropped her off at a bus station in Richmond to take a bus to Fort Lee. The problem with that story is it's a 45 minute drive from where Lawrence was living to the bus station in Richmond. It was only another 30 minutes to Fort Lee. And why would you drive someone 45 minutes to a bus station to take a half hour bus trip?

[Narrator]

State police are determined to question the elusive Lawrence Cadenzi and find his daughter Shelby, who hasn't been seen by her family for a long time. It's now June 2002, seven years since Lisa was last seen. And the investigators try a fresh approach.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

The state police made a deal with a news station in Richmond to run this story and to show a picture of Lawrence Cadenzi and ask the public for their assistance with any leads. They almost immediately got a tip and the tipster who called said that they definitely recognized this person, but that was not Lawrence Cadenzi. They knew him as Randy Evans.

[Narrator]

Randy Evans is a local man who lives on the streets. The police find him at a shopping center and bring him in for questioning.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

The agent said, are you Lawrence Gaudenzi? He said, no, my name is Randy Lee Evans.

[Tony Spencer]

He had a beard that looked very much like Randy Evans. He had a brace on his hand just like Randy Evans had always had. Lawrence has a tattoo, a very distinctive tattoo on his chest. And he asked this man he's talking to, can you take your shirt off so I can see if you have any tattoos? And sure enough, there's the tattoo that Lawrence Cadenzi had. This was Lawrence Cadenze posing as Randy Evans.

[Narrator]

Lawrence is found impersonating a man named named Randy Evans. But there are questions as to how he came to assume Evans identity and where the real Randy Evans is.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Lawrence's story was that he gave Randy Evans a car. I think it was a Chevelle or maybe a Mustang and $10,000 for his identification. That's how he got all of this information on Randy Evans. You know, it's kind of funny that Randy. Randy Evans was never seen again either. He's gone.

[Narrator]

Investigators ask Lawrence why he left and changed his name, and his answer is troubling.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

It became clear that Lawrence had established a new life and a new identity for himself. Lawrence Cadenzi told the police that he had become Randy Evans because he thought Joe Mardo had put a hit out on him. When Joe and Nancy Mardo were told that Lawrence Cadenzi was informing police and investigators that they had put a hit out on him, they laughed and found it utterly ridiculous.

[Nancy Mardo]

Lawrence was nuts. We were just amazed that this was happening.

[Narrator]

On June 14, 2002, the police arrest the now remarried Lawrence Cadenzi for identity theft and for violating his probation on a weapons charge. The revelation that Lawrence has been living a few hours away in Harrisburg infuriates Lisa's father and stepmother.

[Nancy Mardo]

When we heard that he saw the new life and he had a new wife, we were livid, absolutely livid. I got on the computer, I pulled up all this information. We got a marriage license on him. Under the name of Randy Lee Evans, he married Linda May.

[Narrator]

There are still unanswered questions, one being the whereabouts of Lisa's daughter.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

He changed Shelby's name to Logan Evans, and the three of them were living not that far away from where he left, about one county over in Rockingham County.

[Narrator]

Lisa's youngest daughter goes by the name Logan, and she recalls what she was told when her father was jailed for identity theft.

[Logan Durienzo]

My name is Logan Durienzo, and I am the daughter of Lisa and Lawrence. When my dad went to jail, Linda May sat me down and said, I'm not your birth mother. Your birth mother is Lisa Marto. It wasn't weird for me to find out Linda May was not my birth mother. I didn't look like her. I didn't act like her. It kind of made me love her more because she chose to. I was really confused. I didn't understand how Lisa could have left me. I didn't like her as a person. I hated her for abandoning me because that's all I knew. When Linda May told me all of this, she definitely said it in a way that she knew what was going on, but she didn't really want to tell me. And it was very scary to her. She seemed scared as she's telling me all of this.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Lawrence Cadenze could be very charming and cooperative and present himself as a very quiet, pious family man, but there was definitely another side to Lawrence Cadenze.

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[Investigator/Interviewer]

Lawrence's new wife was interviewed by state police agents and was asked what she knew about Lisa's disappearance. She related to them that Lawrence had told her that she had run off with somebody else.

[Narrator]

As Linda, May and Logan detail their life with Lawrence, a disturbing picture emerges

[Logan Durienzo]

from day to day. You never knew what kind of mood my dad was going to be in. He had a temper that is second to none. When I was in second grade, I cut my hair to my ears because that's the way I wanted it. And when I came home, my dad completely lost it and he tried to tear down the bedroom door. I loved the way I looked. I thought it was fun. And for him to just completely break me down over it killed me.

[Narrator]

Patterns of Lawrence's behavior extend back to his previous marriage to Lisa.

[Rachel Fitzpatrick]

Shortly before the actual wedding ceremony, Nancy Mardo and Lisa were together. And Nancy saw that Lisa had some Significant bruises on her legs.

[Nancy Mardo]

Had said to her, if Lawrence is beating on you, you and the two girls pack your bags and you come home with Joe and I. And she said, oh, no. Lawrence wouldn't allow it. We didn't know how bad it was.

[Narrator]

After his arrest, Lawrence pleads guilty to forgery and receives a two year prison sentence. He's released in 2004. Police can't charge Lawrence in connection to Lisa's disappearance. With no new leads, the case goes cold. Years pass by, but Nancy holds on to hope that her stepdaughter will be found.

[Nancy Mardo]

Going through those years not knowing what happened was hard. Her birthday wasn't easy for Joe. But we trudged through a lot of crying, a lot of upset. I put a website up for Lisa. I did an interview on the Internet. We wrote to John Walsh, American Most Wanted, numerous times. And the same letter came back. They didn't want to pick it up. We had a psychic from New Jersey. I even wrote to the President of the United States at the time asking for his help. We left no stone unturned. We knew Lisa was dead. We knew Lawrence killed her.

[Narrator]

The investigators have no evidence and no one seems to be interested in investigating the case until a new Commonwealth Attorney, Tony Spencer, is elected. Thirteen years after Lisa was last seen,

[Tony Spencer]

I was the elected Commonwealth's Attorney of Caroline county beginning on January 1, 2008. I had a lot on my plate. I was new to the job and I got a phone call from a man named Joe Marto. I am a believer that a good prosecutor will not shy away from tough cases. We set up a meeting with Joe Marto and his wife, and by the time that meeting was over, I was convinced that this was a case that I was interested in having investigated and prosecuted.

[Narrator]

All of the information about Lisa points away from her deliberately vanishing.

[Tad Dias]

It seems highly unlikely that a woman about to embark on a career in the military is going to leave her husband without a divorce for another man, going to leave two children behind, is going to basically give up what is, you know, sort of a lifelong dream to just disappear.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

What I found in my investigation was that Lisa was a highly intelligent young lady. She wanted to better herself and we knew something was wrong.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

She hasn't renewed her driver's license. She hasn't renewed her insurance. She hasn't done anything else that normal people do in the daily life. None of that occurred. It just stopped. Sometimes nothing is something.

[Narrator]

Nancy knows better than most people that Lisa would not leave her daughters behind.

[Nancy Mardo]

Lisa just didn't disappear, fall off the Face of the earth. Her life revolved around those two little girls. Lisa had a plan, and the plan wasn't to disappear.

[Narrator]

The investigators know that there is more to the case than they initially thought.

[Tad Dias]

This is not someone who is probably missing. This is someone who was murdered.

[Narrator]

But proving that Lisa has been killed won't be easy, especially when they don't have the most important piece of evidence in a murder investigation. A body.

[Tad Dias]

When police and prosecutors don't have a body, they don't have any information. So police and prosecutors then have to rely on other types of evidence.

[Narrator]

A new task force is assembled to tackle Lisa's case. In the spring of 2008, they came

[Tony Spencer]

up with a team of five investigators and they fanned out. They went to Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Maine, Texas, Virginia, and re interviewed everybody and heard wildly different versions of what Lawrence had told them had happened to Lisa. Lawrence said Lisa had run off with a truck driver from Indiana. In another version, Lawrence said that she had run off with Amanda, Florida.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

The only thing that we had was a history of Lawrence's lies, the lies that he had told over the years about what happened to Lisa. We got an uphill battle here.

[Narrator]

Agents in Florida want to talk to Lisa's first husband, Jim Burdett, who is now homeless.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

I traveled to the last known area that Jim Burdette could have been at. We went through the drive thru McDonald's and got him a meal and went back to the sheriff's office. We sit there in a conference room. He has this briefcase. I am so curious of what's in that briefcase. Why would this homeless man be carrying around a briefcase in 104 degrees on a road in the middle of nowhere? So I open it up, what do I find? I find a plethora of tapes.

[Tony Spencer]

Jim Burnett recorded his conversations with anybody that had anything to do with Lisa, hoping there might be something in there that he could use in his custody battle. One of them was a cassette of Lawrence talking to Jim Burdett two days after Lisa disappeared. And it's fascinating. Lawrence is explaining yet again another version of what happened. She didn't want to stay with me anymore. She wanted to go to Fort Lee. You can hear him trying his stories out. You can hear him trying to dig information out of Jim Burdett that he got. And it was a critical piece of evidence in the case. When you have this audio tape of Lawrence Gudenzi's voice in January of 1995 talking about it, you can't argue with that.

[Narrator]

Hoping to bolster their case, investigators Interviewed Diane, who used to babysit the Ghdenzi's daughter in Virginia. Lisa and Lawrence had called Diane to babysit for them on the weekend before Lisa was supposed to report to Fort Lee for training.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

Lawrence was excited for her to come home, so they took Shelby over to the babysitter. During that time, Diane and Lisa have a conversation, and Lisa tells her that she wants to get a divorce from Lawrence.

[Tony Spencer]

I believe that Lawrence heard Lisa tell the babysitter Diane, that she was going to leave Lawrence, that Lawrence was afraid that Lisa was going to take Shelby away from him, just like she had taken Leah away from Jim Bertram debt.

[Tad Dias]

We have a classic triggering event. He's going to lose control of his wife, but more importantly, he's going to lose control over the most important thing in his life, which is his daughter.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

You start putting circumstances together, and it all starts going down the same road that Lawrence more than likely killed Lisa.

[Narrator]

It's April 2008, and the investigators have established a motive. So they begin looking for evidence at the home Lawrence and Lisa once shared. Special Agent T.C. collins takes part in the search.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

I go in the closet door, and I notice the drywall. There's been some type of work done there. I had pulled the carpet up, and there was just a gigantic red stain. It looked like blood. So I conducted a luminol. It looked like the biggest blue light you've ever seen. I swabbed it. We brought it to the lab. They said, we can't say it's blood, but what we can tell you is there's a whole lot of Clorox there.

[Narrator]

Agent Collins heads to Georgia to interview the basement tenant who was living with the Cadenzees at the time of Lisa's disappearance. In the initial interviews back in 1995, the tenant had told the police that she hadn't seen anything unusual. But time changes everything.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

They say people's memories fade. That's true. But if it's a event that occurred in their life, that's very dramatic. They remember details for years and years and years. So we were looking to pull out those details. She's sitting on the couch. She has her head down, and she starts to rock. And it gets to the point where she is rocking almost uncontrollably. And I said, what's wrong? She said, I'm afraid that Lawrence will come try to kill me.

[Narrator]

It's May 5, 2008, 13 years and four months since Lisa Cadenzi went missing. And Agent Collins is speaking with the former downstairs tenant when she reveals something. She's Been too afraid to say before.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

She says that the ground was frozen. It was been cold for several days. She was out there smoking a cigarette. Lawrence didn't know that she had seen him come out of the top floor deck and carrying a big green bag that he could hardly carry. He went out for about 10 minutes into the woods and came back and didn't have the bag with him.

[Narrator]

The tenant says that Lawrence left the house in a hurry and while he was gone, she went inside and noticed a trail of dirt leading to an upstairs bedroom.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

She had a friend with her at the time. They come in the bedroom and they see all of Lisa's military gear all laid out. They walk into the bathroom and all they see is a bunch of blood. They are scared to death, so they lock the door and go back downstairs. She was still so petrified all these years later.

[Narrator]

The new information is exactly what the investigators need to break the case open. And the state police special agent wastes no time in calling the commonwealth attorney to let him know about the development.

[Tony Spencer]

I was at home taking a shower. The phone rings and I look and I see that it's TC Collins. So I answer it and I'll never forget TC Saying, I've got the smoking gun.

[Narrator]

It's welcome news for everyone, but most of all for Lisa's family, who had never given up on finding the truth.

[Nancy Mardo]

It was around 1 o' clock in the afternoon and the phone rings and I looked at the clock and I says, my intuition, I said, it's Spencer. And sure enough, it was Nancy. We just arrested Lawrence for the murder of Lisa. I jumped up and down. I was so happy that we were going to have some type of closure to this.

[Narrator]

Lawrence is indicted on murder charges and arrested. Lisa's family ensure that they are present to see it through to the end.

[Nancy Mardo]

He was in shackles and we sat right there and we looked right at. He seen us. He didn't know what to do. He knew we wanted him to know it was us that was involved and brought him down.

[Narrator]

Fourteen years have passed since Lisa vanished, and the Carolyn county prosecutor has an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence to present. Jim Burdett's tape recordings and the basement tenant's eyewitness account proves damning. Just two days into the trial, Lawrence pleads guilty to second degree murder and is sentenced to 25 years in prison. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the man whose identity Lawrence had assumed is still an open investigation. There's also the question of what happened to Lisa and where her body had been for so long.

[Nancy Mardo]

Joe and I were relieved that Lawrence finally was found guilty. We weren't happy that we didn't know where Lisa's remains were.

[Tony Spencer]

We still wanted to know what happened to Lisa, what happened to her body. So Doc Lyons and T.C. collins went to see Lawrence in prison and said, look, if you can tell us where Lisa's body is, we might be able to convince the prosecutor to agree to a sentence reduction. What Lawrence said happened was that he and Lisa had been arguing at the top of the steps and that he had grabbed Lisa. She pulled away from him and fell down the steps and broke her neck. He was afraid he would be charged with murder, and so he just decided instead to just get rid of the body and pretend that she had gone missing.

[Narrator]

Not everyone believes Lawrence's story of how Lisa died.

[Logan Durienzo]

I do not believe that Lisa was killed the way Lawrence likes to paint the pretty picture of it was an accident. I've seen my dad angry, and I just don't believe it.

[Narrator]

Lawrence tells the investigators that he had placed Lisa's body into a 50 gallon drum and covered it with muriatic acid. In June 2010, the investigators traveled to Spotsylvania County, Virginia, to try and locate Lisa's remains.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

So we pull down in this field where we find what looks like a lot of synthetic material that comes out of a sleeping bag.

[Special Agent T.C. Collins]

I look off to the right, and literally there is three bottles of muriatic acid that's been there for 15, 20 years.

[Narrator]

Close to the acid bottles, investigators find something telling, something Lisa had since her childhood.

[Tony Spencer]

It was Lisa Bartow's dental bridge, and it's the only human remains of Lisa that there are. But they were at least able to find some remains and give the family some closure.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

We have done the best we could to provide them. At least we know where the resting place of their daughter is.

[Narrator]

Lawrence's hopes of a sentence reduction are dashed. But Lisa's family finally have answers.

[Nancy Mardo]

We had a memorial at the military cemetery, and they had gun salute. They had a flyover. They had a minister there. Beautiful service. Absolutely beautiful. We were happy that we got the partial. We were happy that we were able to put it to a headstone. We lobbied the army to change her name back to her main name.

[Logan Durienzo]

We were free. I lived with a murderer for 13 years. I will never have the relationship I should have with my sister, of growing up and driving her crazy and all of the things. And it definitely changed everything.

[Nancy Mardo]

Through the whole process, we grieved a lot. Not just when it was over. This was a big part of our life every day. Nobody should have to go through this.

[Narrator]

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call the National Domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE. That's 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. Cold case files is hosted by paula barros. It's produced by the law and crime network and written by eileen mcfarlane and emily g. Thompson. Our composer is blake maples. For a and e, our senior producer is john thrasher and our supervising producer is mckamey lin. Our executive producers are jesse katz, maite cueva and peter tarshis. This podcast is based on a e's emmy winning tv series, cold case files. For more cold case files, visit aetb.com copyright 2023 a e television networks, llc. All rights reserved. Hello and welcome to plutofo. If you know the name of the

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