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- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
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- [00:26]
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- [00:58]
Sarah Reid
40 years is a long time to wait. A long time to keep looking. A long time to wonder if someone somewhere knows the one thing that could finally bring your kid home.
- [01:11]
Kathy Longo
I just feel like a failed mother because I couldn't find her. It's going on 40 years.
- [01:19]
News Reporter
40 years.
- [01:21]
Family Member or Close Friend
That's a long time.
- [01:23]
Narrator
For nearly four agonizing decades, Catherine Longo has searched for her daughter Jennifer, doing everything in her power to get her home.
- [01:34]
Sarah Reid
Jennifer Martelise was seven years old when she disappeared. She was a second grader, tiny for her age. She was smart, loved, and she was the kind of child who left for school on a Monday morning and should have been home by the afternoon. But on November 15, 1982, Jennifer never made it home. And what happened in the short distance between Shaw elementary and her house has never been fully explained. I'm Sarah Reid, and this is sequestered season four. The year is 1982. We're in Tampa, Florida, and this is the vanishing of Jennifer Martelise. If you were alive in 1982, you might remember what the year felt like. It was the year of et, of cassette tapes and handwritten phone messages. The Tylenol murders had reminded the country that danger could hide inside of ordinary things. But still, most people did not look at a short walk home from school as a risk. Not in daylight and not in your own neighborhood. News moved differently back then, through newspapers, evening broadcasts, phone calls and word of mouth. Childhood moved differently, too. Kids walked home from school. They crossed streets with friends and moved through familiar neighborhoods that felt safe. Most afternoons, nothing happened until that one Monday in Tampa. It's November 15, 1982. Just after 3pm School lets out at Shaw elementary in North Tampa. Kids pour out of the building and into the Surrounding neighborhood, backpacks swinging, voices overlapping the ordinary noise of dismissal. Jennifer Martelise is part of that crowd. She is seven years old, a second grader. She has dark hair and brown eyes. She's small for her age, around 4ft tall, and weighs about 60 pounds. Her mother, Kathy, would later remember how tiny she was compared to other children in her class
- [04:11]
Narrator
then.
- [04:11]
Kathy Longo
She was so tiny. She was like, you know in the classroom how your children are like to have older kids. But she was the tiniest in the class, and she was so smart. They wanted to promote her to a higher grade because she was so smart, and I didn't want her to. I wanted her to be with her friends.
- [04:35]
Sarah Reid
At school that day, nothing seemed wrong. Jennifer's teacher later described her as being outgoing and confident. She liked to participate. She raised her hand. She even asked to read aloud in class that day. There was nothing about that afternoon that suggested it was about to become the last one anyone could fully account for. School let out, and Jennifer started walking home. At first, she was with other children. A small group moved through the neighborhood, leaving school behind, heading toward home. But like school dismissal always does, the group began to thin. One child turned off. Another crossed ahead. Someone slowed down. Someone else reached their house, and before long, Jennifer was walking alone. She was close to home, though, and that part matters because this, this was not a child miles away from where she was supposed to be. It was a familiar route and a short walk, the kind of distance that feels almost impossible when you know what happened next. Somewhere along her route, a crossing guard named Linda Garcia noticed Jennifer, not because Jennifer was out of place, but because something about her did not feel right. Jennifer was crying. She was visibly upset. To the crossing guard. When Garcia approached her and asked what was wrong, Jennifer reacted in a way that stayed with her. She bit her thumb hard, hard enough that it became a remembered detail. Then Jennifer said something that has stayed with this case ever since. She said, my new mama said my daddy is coming to get me. It's the kind of sentence your mind immediately tries to make sense of. Was Jennifer repeating something someone told her? Was she confused? Afraid? Trying to explain something she didn't fully understand? Garcia told Jennifer to go back to school and wait there. But Jennifer said, my new mama said I could walk home. And then she kept walking. We do not know exactly what Jennifer meant. We don't know what she had seen, heard, or been told. But we do know that this becomes one of the last moments anyone can place her. After that, another possible sighting comes into the story. A nearby Woman heard a car door slam and looked outside. When she did, she saw a child near a car. A rust colored car. The car had two doors, a dull finish and tinted windows. The child the woman saw appeared to be moving away from the car quickly. At the time, it was just a strange moment. But it wasn't until later, when Jennifer was reported missing, that it became something else. Police were never able to confirm that the child was Jennifer. But the timing and location made the car's disappearance one of the most important early leads in the case. And then the trail stops. There were no confirmed sightings, no witnesses who can say where Jennifer went next, no clean moment where anyone sees what happened. There was just a seven year old girl, close to home and now gone. Back at home, the afternoon kept moving like any other afternoon until Jennifer did not arrive home. At first, the mind reaches for ordinary explanations. Maybe she stopped to talk to a friend. Maybe she got distracted. Maybe she was walking slowly and was almost there. But she never showed. And within two hours, Jennifer was reported missing. Police responded, a report was taken. But according to later reporting, the urgency of the case did not move quickly enough through the department. Turns out the situation was not escalated to a supervisor for several hours. And in a case like this, those hours matter. Because whatever happened during that short walk home had time to disappear with her. By the time the search fully mobilized, night had fallen over Tampa. Officers began knocking on doors. Neighbors stepped outside. People who didn't know Jennifer joined people who did. They searched yards, alleys, sheds, drainage pipes, culverts, vacant lots, Anywhere a child could hide or be hidden. By the next day, the search had grown. Dogs were brought in. Helicopters circled overhead, and the neighborhood was scoured from the ground and the air.
- [09:40]
Kathy Longo
And the day after she was taken, I went to her school. And this little boy comes up to me and he's hitting me and he's saying, where's Jennifer? Where's Jennifer? And I said, we're looking for her, honey, we're looking for her.
- [09:56]
Narrator
There was a massive search, scouring the Sulphur Springs neighborhood on the ground and in the air.
- [10:06]
Sarah Reid
That is one of the heartbreaking parts of Jennifer's case. The disappearance did not just fracture her family. It reached into her classroom, her school, her neighborhood. The children who expected to see her the next day and could not understand why she was gone. This search became massive.
- [10:26]
Narrator
More than 1,000 neighbors showed up to help look for her. Despite that extensive effort, there was no sign of Jennifer.
- [10:34]
Kathy Longo
There has to be. There has to be somebody that knows something.
- [10:38]
Narrator
Age progression images have been put out to the public over the years. Tips even leading investigators as far as Pennsylvania to search for possible remains. But nothing was found.
- [10:52]
Sarah Reid
And still there was nothing. Tips came in. Some sounded plausible, Some were vague. Some were strange. Police followed up on every lead, including claims tied to dreams and impressions. Because in the early days of a missing child case, even the unlikely can feel impossible to ignore. But the investigation kept returning to the same limited pieces. The crying child, the strange statement to the crossing guard, the rust colored car, and the fact that Jennifer was only a short distance from her home. At the same time, police considered whether Jennifer may have run away. She had reportedly been on restriction at home. She had reportedly mentioned running away before. So investigators looked at that possibility, but it never fully fit because Jennifer was seven, she was close to home, she had been seen crying. And after that, she just vanished in broad daylight. Those facts made the runaway theory hard to hold for Jennifer's family. The days after her disappearance became kind of a suspended life. Waiting by the phone, answering every question and holding onto hope because there was nothing else to hold.
- [12:14]
Family Member or Close Friend
And I just, I says, what? I mean, how can you handle it that your daughter's been missing for three years? There's no way. I mean, I'm gonna find my daughter now. I don't know how you can even keep on going. And here it's been over seven years and she's still missing.
- [12:32]
Sarah Reid
Seven years later, her mother was still saying she would keep holding on. And that is what this case became. Not just a search, but a family learning how to live inside of the not knowing. Jennifer's case rests on a small number of documented pieces and a much larger number of unanswered questions. What we know is this. Jennifer left Shaw elementary after school let out on November 15, 1982. She began walking home. She was seen by a crossing guard, crying and upset. She made a statement about a new mama and her father coming to get her. A child was possibly seen near a rust.
- [13:23]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Sequestered is brought to you by Progressive insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with auto quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [13:49]
Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser
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- [14:20]
Sarah Reid
Colored two door car with tinted windows Jennifer never arrived home and despite a massive surge, she has never been found. What investigators did not have was just as important. They had no confirmed abduction scene, no license plate or identified driver, no physical evidence that clearly explained what happened. There was no witness who could say this is the moment Jennifer was taken and that is why the case could not narrow cleanly. The car mattered, but it could not be proven. The crossing guard statement mattered, but it raised more questions than it answered. The runaway theory was investigated, but it did not resolve the facts. And the delay in fully escalating the case from the start meant that the earliest window, the window where every minute mattered, had already been damaged. This is the part that feels so hard to sit with the because Jennifer's disappearance should have left more behind. It's not like she was in a remote place. She wasn't out late at night. She wasn't even far from her home. She was just a 7 year old kid walking through a neighborhood after school. And somehow inside that very small window, the story breaks. By the end of 1982, Jennifer Martelise was was still missing. No arrests had been made, no suspects had been confirmed, no explanation that held Years after Jennifer disappeared, her case took a turn not in Tampa, but in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. A woman came forward with a memory from her childhood. She told investigators about a man who had ties to both Pennsylvania and Tampa, a man who had since died. According to reporting, she remembered seeing him remove a large plastic bag from his car around the same general time Jennifer disappeared. She remembered a wooded area and a possible burial site. Investigators began searching.
- [16:38]
Pennsylvania State Trooper
Pennsylvania state troopers are renewing their search for the body of a seven year old girl who disappeared 30 years ago. Jennifer Marteliz vanished in 1982 while walking home from in Tampa. Her remains are believed to be somewhere in this wooded area in Fayette County. Investigators are using cadaver dogs to search. Authorities say they got a tip from detectives in Tampa where a woman recently came forward with information about a possible suspect.
- [17:07]
Sarah Reid
The lead was disturbing for obvious reasons. It suggested that Jennifer's case, which had started with a short walk home from school in Tampa, Florida, may have reached all the way to a wooded area in Pennsylvan investigators used cadaver dogs. They searched properties and tried to understand whether this memory could connect to Jennifer. But even the trooper who was interviewed at the time made clear that the picture was incomplete.
- [17:38]
Interviewed Investigator
30 years of time that essentially has passed between this girl going missing and this information coming forward. So, you know, things are not all the pieces are in place at this point, but we are working on putting it all together.
- [17:51]
Pennsylvania State Trooper
Our trooper Christy says he is not sure why the woman decided to come forward now with her information.
- [18:00]
Sarah Reid
Investigators had a tip, a possible suspect, a location even they searched, but they still did not find Jennifer. At one point, Steven State police searched along Gilchrist Road in Fayette County. But conditions in the area complicated everything. Too much time had passed, too much had changed. Vegetation had grown over. A gas line had been laid. And eventually that search was called off.
- [18:32]
News Reporter
A possible witness victim came forward linking a man who used to live here, he since died, to her disappearance. You may Remember she was 7 years old back in 1982 when she went missing from her Tampa area home. Now state police tell us there's just too much that happened here in this area in the past 30 years. Too much vegetation. A gas line was laid in that area where her body could have possibly been buried. So they were calling off the search for now. They tell me they will be back out in this area in the spring and in the meantime they plan to do some witness interviews. Of course, you can count on us to keep keep you posted. We're in Fayette County. Ashley Hardway, Channel 4 Action News.
- [19:11]
Sarah Reid
And that was the heartbreak of the Pennsylvania lead. It brought attention back to Jennifer's case. It suggested that someone's memory might finally matter. But it did not bring her home. No remains were confirmed, no arrest followed. And once again, Jennifer's family was left in the same place with a lead that sounded important, with a search that felt urgent and no answer that came of it all. When you go back to the beginning, Jennifer's disappearance feels like it should be simple. A seven year old girl leaves school. She walks a familiar route home. She's close to home. It's daylight, people are outside. Life is happening around her and she never makes it. What remains are fragments. A child seen crying. A sentence that still does not fully make sense. My new mama said my daddy is coming to get me. A rust colored car that appears briefly in the timeline and then disappears from it. A search that brought out an entire neighborhood and a mother who has spent decades waiting.
- [20:34]
Family Member or Close Friend
If someone came to me and said that I could see Jennifer, but I would I could not live any longer. If I could just see her. If I could just see her, I would give up anything.
- [20:48]
Sarah Reid
That particular news clip aired seven years after Jennifer disappeared. But the waiting did not stop at seven years. It has stretched decades. In a later interview, her mother described the teddy bear she still keeps with her. It was Jennifer's favorite toy, a physical piece of her daughter that she can still hold.
- [21:10]
Kathy Longo
So I keep this teddy bear with me all the time.
- [21:13]
Narrator
Her mother clutches to this teddy bear, her daughter's favorite toy, as she waits for the day that Jennifer comes home.
- [21:21]
Kathy Longo
I believe she's still out there. I just need her to come home. My arms are waiting for her. I imagine that she's married and has children. And we're going to have a whole other extension to our beautiful family.
- [21:39]
Sarah Reid
To understand Jennifer's case, we have to remember what 1982 did and did not give investigators. Because when you hear this story now, your brain reaches for modern tools. Where are the cameras? Where did the last location ping? Did anyone's doorbell catch the car? Did the school send an alert? Was there a statewide notification? But in 1982, a child walking home did not leave a digital trail. There was no phone in her backpack. There wasn't a neighborhood camera network or even an Amber alert. No instant push notification with her photo, her clothing, and the car description. There were flyers. There were phone calls. There were evening news reports. There were neighbors searching on foot. And there was human memory, fragile, incomplete, sometimes delayed by years, sometimes delayed by decades. That is the brutal thing about Jennifer's case. The window is so small, the distance is so short. And the decade offered almost nothing to capture the moment that everything changed. No footage, no timestamp, no data trail. Just a child walking home, a few people who saw pieces of the story, and a silence that has lasted more than 40 years. But Jennifer's life is not just that silence. She was seven years old, a second grader. She was small for her age, smart, outgoing, A child who wanted to read aloud in class that day. A child her mother still imagines growing up, getting married, having children of her own, and becoming part of a bigger family story that never got to happen. Jennifer Sofia Martellis has never been found. No one has been charged in her disappearance. Her case remains open. If you have any information about the disappearance of Jennifer Martellis, please contact the Tampa Police Department at 813-276-3200. You can also contact the national center for Missing and exploited children at 1, 800, the lost or child find of America at 1, 800, I am lost. Even now, decades later, something small could still a memory, a name, a car, a story someone heard and never repeated. Because this case has never been closed, it has never been explained. And for Jennifer Martelise, the story is still unfinished. Next time on Sequestered A short bike ride a nearby mall, a summer afternoon in 1983. Ann Gottlieb had done it before, but this time she does not come home. Her bicycle is later found near the mall, and what happened after that remains one of Louisville's most haunting unanswered questions. That and more on the next episode. Sequestered is created by Sarah Reid and Andrea Clyde, hosted and produced by Sarah Written and researched together.
- [25:14]
News Reporter
Foreign.
- [25:28]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Sequestered is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [25:54]
Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser
Save on family essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons, Fresh cut cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple or melon medley bowls 24 ounces are $5 each and wild caught lobster tails are $4.99 each. Limit eight member price plus selected sizes and varieties of Doritos, Lays, Cheetos, sun chips and Kettle cooked chips are $1.99 each. Limit for member price. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.