Lynne Hooker
It was 1967, and Monroe County was still gun shy, especially in my neck of the woods in the northeastern corner of Chili. Just six months earlier, my friends George-Ann Formicola and Kathy Bernhard had disappeared. They remained missing for a month and were found brutally murdered.
So there was an immediate shudder of horror when word came that there’d been another disappearance. She was Lynne Hooker, twenty years old, who had previously gotten her name in the papers many times by making the merit honor group at Williamson Central High School and again because she was one of the teens organizing a Williamson Township Youth Center. She’d been featured in an article about her school’s Latin Club, known as the Paleolinguists, and for her role as a cheerleader, organizing pep rallies on the day of big games.
Now her name was public again, this time in bold, and the reason was that she’d vanished, last seen about 11:45 a.m. on December 30, driving off in her 1961 bright red foreign sports car.
Lynn was supposed to report to her job as a laboratory technician at Strong Memorial Hospital, a 3 p.m. to midnight shift, but she didn’t show up, and for a week nobody heard from her.
The New York State Police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office issued a twenty-state alarm covering the eastern part of the country, a be-on-the-lookout for both Lynn and her attention-grabbing red car. An air search was repeatedly planned but then grounded because of snowy weather.
On January 7, Rochester received the best news. Lynne, still driving her car, returned home. Her dad said she pulled into the driveway a little after two in the afternoon.
“She was pretty upset,” Stewart E. Hooker said. “She said that she had driven to Florida and back. She was still wearing the clothes she left in. She was too upset to talk and went right to bed.”
Why did she leave? Why did she come back? How well did she return to her normal life? What’s the rest of the story? Well, that’s the thing about happy endings. No crime was committed here, and none of the answers to those questions is any of our business.
Bridget Anne Horan
In the town of Bath, on Monday afternoon, September 9, 1975, two-and-a-half-year-old Bridget Anne Horan was playing with a dog in the front yard of her aunt, Mary Remchuck. The aunt, babysitting the child because the mom was working, stepped inside for a moment, and when she returned, the toddler was gone.
Aunt Mary immediately called the police, and a search was promptly organized. First to be checked was Demon’s Pond, near where the child was last seen, but there was no sign of the girl.
About thirty-five persons helped in the search, including volunteer firemen from Avoca, Howard, Wallace, and Bath. Officials in on the search included New York State Police, Steuben County Sheriff ’s deputies, and Avoca police. Roadblocks were set up in case someone with a car had snatched the girl and was trying to get out of Dodge.
Bridget had been gone for several hours when two bloodhounds trained by the state police searched a thick wood near Demon’s Pond, but they didn’t get far before there was a call on the radio with the happy news.
Bridget, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Horan of the Arkport-Dansville Road, had been found by a neighbor, Henry Hughes, in a barn belonging to Bridget’s grandparents a solid mile and a half from her aunt’s yard.
There were questions that remained. How had a toddler managed to get that far? Did anyone know how the child got from her aunt’s front yard to her grandparents’ barn?
We’ll never know if any of those questions were asked aloud or satisfactorily answered. The only thing that mattered was that Bridget had been found, safe and by all appearances unharmed.
Emma L. Oppedisano
This year, joyously, it happened again. The wails of despair that often begin the murder mystery—chock full of white vans and hooded men hiding behind trees—were not heard, and instead there were the deep sighs and tears of relief and joy.
This tale starts just like a thousand true crime stories: A young woman missing, gone for a walk and vanished.
Nineteen-year-old Emma L. Oppedisano of Brighton was last seen around 8:30 p.m. on August 3 in the area of Browncroft Boulevard and Old Browncroft Boulevard in the town of Penfield, near the edge of Ellison Park. She’d gone for a walk with her father, and the two had gotten separated.
She was reported missing within hours of her disappearance. Searchers set out immediately, using lights to continue until about two in the morning, when they called it off, resuming at dawn.
It was a huge effort, with Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies and firefighters leading the way. But there were also searchers from Monroe County Special Operations, New York State Police Aviation, the West Webster Fire Department, and the sheriff’s offices of Wayne and Ontario counties.
Drones and helicopters flew over the heavily wooded area between the two roads and deeper inside the park. K-9 teams from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office were brought in to help.
Searchers tried to stay positive, but each one knew there was a chance they’d find something horrible, a chance that a soul had been stolen and a human monster walked those woods.
A description of the missing woman was sent out: five-six, slim build. Her picture was everywhere, from the TV news to social media. Last seen wearing a navy-blue short-sleeve shirt, gray sweatpants, and white sneakers.
The search went on all day. The woods, normally quiet, were noisy with the racket of aerial surveillance. While some officials searched on foot, others rode bicycles and all-terrain vehicles.
At 3:30 p.m., deputies were approached along a park trail by a man on a mountain bike. He’d seen something in the woods. Looked like maybe a girl sitting on the ground against a tree.
He said the location was off a trail in a heavily wooded area near the Tryon Park trails. Deputies hurried to the spot and found Emma, not in bad shape but hopelessly lost.
The search leader, Captain Matthew Kreuzer of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, couldn’t suppress his smile. “It isn’t often we get to share good new like this.”
As a true crime writer who often has to talk to persons about the worst day of their lives, I agree. Thanks to (585) magazine for giving me the chance to tell you about the missing persons who lived on, reunited with their loved ones, safe and warm in the bosom of their homes.
Happy holidays, everybody!
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2026 issue of (585).
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