The Heartbreaking Case Of Amy Mihaljevic
December 11, 1978, 10-year-old Amy Mihaljevic brought joy to everyone in her life.
Growing up in a quiet town called Bay Village Ohio, located to the north of Cleveland’s suburbs near Lake Erie. Amy was described as outgoing, clever, and kind. She was in the gifted program at school and some recall she may have been more outgoing and comfortable around adults than other girls her age. She wore a cross on a chain around her neck and loved horses.
She liked to wear her hair in a side ponytail, and when she smiled relatives recall her freckles caught in the sun like stars. Her mother worked full time at Trading Times Magazine, a classified publication that advertised car sales. October 27th was a cool and calm Friday in 1989. It was the kind of day of which autumn memories are made.
Locals recall that the days leading up to Halloween were always full of anticipation and quiet excitement in this small all-American town, and this year was no exception with preparations for parties and parades. But while parents and kids geared up to face the haunts and horrors of trick or treating after dark, a far more cunning and deceptive danger was in fact lurking in broad daylight.
Amy, A fifth grader from eft her house around 7:20 AM telling her mom that she would be home late due to a fifth grade choir audition .She rode her bike to school alone, her older brother Jason having left earlier. This was a common and everyday occurrence in this small community in 1989, and Amy joined dozens of other school children at the bike racks in front of Bay Village Middle School as she prepared to start her day.
In school, Amy watched a presentation by local police alongside her peers, the topic: Stranger Danger. Little did the police officer that was presenting know, one audience member was only away from her own stranger-abduction, as Mere hours later, the actual reality of the danger of strangers would be revealed to Amy in the saddest of ways. School got out at 2:04 pm that day and Amy left her bike in the school’s rack and walked with her two friends to the nearby “bay Village square” an open plan shopping center just one block from their school that was typically busy at that time.
Amy had previously told her mom that there was a choir audition happening and explained that she would not be home until later in the evening because of it but there is no written record of a choir audition ever taking place and police believe that this was a cover story for what Amy thought was going to be a wonderful and well-intentioned surprise for her mother.
It had always been the children’s responsibility to get themselves home; they were then to call their mother to let them know they arrived safe. At 3:10 that afternoon, Amy’s brother, Jason, called his mother to tell her that while he had arrived home, Amy was yet to show up. In what is incredibly strange and confusing, Amy’s mom then states that Amy herself called her at her work at 3:30 p.m and told her mom that everything was fine.
The generic nature of the verbal communication was misunderstood by Amy’s mother as a confirmation that Amy was in fact home safe. As caller ID was not available back in 1989, Amy’s mother had no way of knowing the origination of that call but assumed incorrectly that it had come from their house. No other details have been publicly provided about the phone call, and such uncertainty surrounding the details of the calls and its origins haunt investigators and relatives alike.
Police now believe that Amy’s abductor allowed her to call her mother’s work in order to throw off suspicions for another few hours. Going about the remainder of her workday unalarmed, Margaret Mihaljevic did not realize her assumptions about Amy arriving home had been dreadfully incorrect until she got off work and drove home that evening.
When she got off work at 5:30 and drove back to her house she was panicked to find that Amy had actually never returned home that day whatsoever. Amy’s mother quickly called the parents of Amy’s friends and went to the school where she saw Amy’s bike, which she took to and from school each day, still in the bike rack. At 5:58 pm, 3 hours and 45 minutes since Amy was last seen and just under two and a half hours after she had called her mom from an unknown location, Amy’s mother contacted police and filed a missing persons report.
Due to the age of the missing child, all available area units were dispatched to the area and the FBI was called to assist. At this point no one knew about the phone call Amy had received prior to her abduction, inviting her to go shopping for a secret present for her mom. What had previously seemed like just a mundane and unremarkable interaction, suddenly became highly important, when police canvassed the shopping mall and discovered that there were some people who recalled seeing the 10-year-old with an older man. They were able
to describe the older male to some extent, as well as his car that he ultimately led Amy to. Amy was last seen outside of Baskin Robbins ice cream store with a man described by her two schoolmates as looking like he could be Amy’s father, they did describe the man as having dark hair, and recalls that he was possibly balding.
One adult witness, the owner of a shop behind the ice cream parlor recalls seeing Amy being picked up by a man he described as Caucasian, and estimated he was between the ages of 35 and 45 years old. The witness estimated the man’s height at around 5-foot-8, and said he had An average build and had dark hair.
The witness also recalls that he was possibly wearing a tan jacket and may have had glasses. Another witness provides an even more specific recollection, recalling that the man who spoke to Amy was wearing a beige windbreaker with plaid-patterned inner-lining, and front-pressed tan khakis, paired with a button-up shirt. The witness remembers the man’s hair was, thick and bushy, and bushing the tops of his eyebrows in length.
The adult witness also brings up that while the man wasn’t dressed in an unprofessional way, he had poor posture and didn’t carry himself with professionalism or distinction like a professional or white collar-worker might when in public. They recall he walked directly up to Amy, stooped over to speak with her and led her away. This is estimated to have happened between 220 at 2:30 PM.
While police canvassed the neighborhood and interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses, the only lead they had was that Amy had received a call from an unknown man inviting her on a clandestine shopping trip, in broad daylight, to buy a surprise gift for her mother for her promotion at work.
Amy’s friend’s recall her saying that he told her she was good at keeping secrets. Tragically, Three months later on Feb 8th 1990, Amy’s body was found in farmland off of county road 1181 . Found 50 miles from the bay Village square shopping center, police believe her body was placed in that location shortly after being abducted. While Amy’s location was finally known, the pain experienced by family was not at all lessened as while they had hoped she would be found alive they had almost relegated themselves to the fact she was gone, but they never imagined she would have been taken from them in such a brutal fashion,
indicative of a true monster living in their midst. Investigators revealed that Amy had unfortunately been stabbed twice in the neck and had been sexually assaulted. While her body was clothed she was missing some items that she would have been carrying that day. Police believe her killer took items from her as souvenirs of sorts, including her horse-riding boots, her denim backpack, her binder which had “Buick, Best in Class” written on the front clasp, and turquoise earrings in the shape of horse heads, indicative of Amy’s first love.
A very small amount of DNA was able to be recovered from the crime scene, which was not necessarily the scene of the crime, that is to say, detectives do not believe she was killed in the same location that her body was dumped. The DNA collected was never matched to anybody within Amy’s family or any of her known associates.
According to various news sources, the DNA recovered was in the form of a piece of tape containing three hairs (not necessarily all from the same person). The hairs that were found were without the hair follicle present. This means that the hair found was not pulled from the root and therefore does not have the type of DNA that is easily traceable in CODIS but is simply a mitochondrial DNA, of which further analysis that could be compared to a suspect but not inputted into the system as a fluid or other nucleus based DNA sample. Amy’s body was
also found with gold or tan fibers present on her person. Media sources vary on the color. In 2006 police would reveal that at least three other young girls had been telephoned by an adult male and had been told similar stories of a relative getting a promotion. These girls were also given an invitation to go purchase a gift, in secret, for that relative, but none of them accepted.
Looking at the pattern of those contacted, Amy reportedly was one of many girls who visited the Holly Hill Farm and horse stables, as well as Lake Erie Nature and Science Center in Bay Village. There is a theory that Amy was one of many young girls who signed a log book with their full name and phone number. There is speculation that an unnamed volunteer at that center could be connected, and James Renner, author of a book on the case, states that while the museum supposedly has copies of that log book, he theorizes that they are suppressing the release of such documents out of fear of negative press.
The freedom of information act does not apply to private foundations so unless someone from their board requests a review of the logbooks no more information on the visitor log books can be uncovered. Until 2006, it was not public knowledge that other girls had been called nor that there was a possible connection to the stables or the science museum.
While this seemed like a major break, the public heard nothing more on the log book link subject after the initial press release. In 2016, Police released crucial information regarding a blanket and curtain recovered back in 1990 near the county road 1181, located about 1000 feet from Amy’s body. Initially, when Amy’s body was found three months after her abduction, detectives collected all the items in the crime scene’s vicinity, from trash to various personal belongings and these two items were found together about 1000 feet from Amy’s body.
first there was thought to be no direct connection between these items and Amy so the evidence was not disclosed and the public was not asked for assistance. However, once technology allowed for it, the animal hairs clinging to the blanket were finally able to be analyzed for DNA and the hairs were conclusively matched to Jake, the family dog, to whom Amy was close.
The two items that have been linked to Amy are a homemade curtain that is described as a color similar to quote, “avocado green” and the other item found is a light colored store bought blanket. Some questions that came from this new discovery surrounded how Amy’s killer had acquired those items, with some wondering if the killer had possibly taken them from a previous encounter because her mother never mentioned she carried any bags or extra blankets on her person when she rode her bike to school at 720 am that morning.
FBI Agent Phil Torsney who returned from his retirement just to work in this case, says of the two items quote- “If we can find the person who, somebody can call us and say, ‘my mom made this curtain; my grandma made this curtain; it was hanging in my brother’s room’; whatever that is, we can solve this case.
” In January of 2019, police received a call from a now 64-year-old man’s ex-girlfriend who claimed that the evening Amy went missing, Friday October 27th 1989, her then-boyfriend didn’t come home. The woman stated that back then she and the unnamed male lived within a mile of the shopping center from which Amy was kidnapped, and not only did the unnamed suspect work and have family in that area but he also had a niece in the exact same grade as Amy, the fifth grade. The belated witness shared with police that she believed her ex boyfriend was
possibly responsible for Amy’s kidnapping and subsequent murder because he strangely left work that afternoon but never came home that night, which was highly unusual for him, but the suspicious circumstantial evidence didn’t stop there, and only continued to pile up. After receiving this tip, the detectives quickly noticed, when comparing the scene’s artifacts to what they knew about this man, that, based on DMV, in 1989 he owned a gold colored Oldsmobile with tan interior. If the description of the gold color and specific auto make of the car,
which matched witness descriptions of the car they saw Amy getting into that day, wasn’t enough, the tan fibers found on Amy’s body matched the color of the description of the tan interior of the Oldsmobile registered to the suspect back in 1989 and 1990. The ex-girlfriend also stated that when she finally did talk to the now 64 year old that night, at around 10 PM, his first question was if the media had picked up the story of Amy’s disappearance. Even though, especially back then with the lack of 24/7 media coverage,
the story would not make it to the front page of the newspapers until the next day, There is also a possibility that news of her disappearance didn’t even hit the radio or TV airwaves until at least 1030 pm or 11. police believe this line of questioning indicated that this man may have had prior knowledge of Amy’s, knowledge which would indicate a guilty conscience.
When asked why he was concerned about Amy’s disappearance, the man first claimed that he was friends with relatives of Amy, and later claimed to have possibly spoken to Amy himself on the phone. In what some say is the most damning piece of evidence, the day that Amy was found and the location was publicized, on a hunch that the killer may drive by to see the police’s findings, an FBI agent was posted at the nearest intersection.
The agent tasked with monitoring the street was responsible for writing down the plates of all cars who passed by the area that day. The suspect that is accused by his ex-girlfriend was confirmed as driving through that intersection the day Amy’s body was found. There was no specific reason for him to be in that area on that day, fifty miles away from his hometown and the fact he chose to drive by that exact place on that day Amy’s body was publicized as having been found is highly suspicious to investigators.
Just a few days after the 30th anniversary of Amy’s disappearance the suspect himself walked into a police station and willingly sat down with detectives for what would turn into a two day interview. When police asked him if he had ever contacted Amy via phone he stated that he may have called the house after meeting her mother at a bar and mistaken the 10-year-old for her much older mother and therefore conversed with her by mistake via phone.
When police asked him if he may have called Amy’s house prior to that one supposedly accidental conversation, he states he may have called previously as a wrong number. How he would be aware of the owner of the wrong number which was accidentally dialed is unclear. Police report that when investigators asked the unnamed suspect if Amy had ever been inside his car he oddly replied, quote “I don’t believe so,” but asked again if it was even a remote possibility that Amy would have been inside his vehicle, they say the man cryptically replied quote “okay, but I don’t know what the situation would have been.”
Police stated that two of the eye witnesses at the square that day, children themselves and friends of Amy’s, believed the ten year old was talking to her dad when last seen. This observation correlates with the age of the suspect at the time. With the suspect being 64 in 2021 that means he would have been 33 at the time of the abduction which is the age group that would have matched up to how a child would perceive a father of someone Amy’s age would look.
According to police, using old photos of the man, his appearance in the latter half of 1989 was quote “consistent with one of two major suspect composites obtained via witness interviews.” A sworn affidavit written by the police officer who interviewed the accused suspect in 2019 said that the suspect stated that 1989 and 1990 was a quote “dark period” in his life.
When asked if there was even a remote possibility that his DNA could be found on items near the scene such as a curtain or blanket, the man reportedly acquiesced by saying that his DNA might be on a curtain that was found nearbuy, but went on to say that if DNA did show up on her body it would have, of course, had been planted there. The man stopped communicating with the police the next day, failing to show up to the station to sign a release that would allow police to open and search his storage, and detectives had to get a warrant in order to search it. While investigators reportedly
seized evidence, they most likely did not seize Amy’s personal belongings, as if police had anything other than circumstantial evidence they would have arrested him by now, so remains the missing link, which could come in the form of a public tip. This man is reportedly currently homeless and living out of his car but does have a cell phone and possibly a storage unit.
His name has not been officially released to the media. While the bounty of circumstantial evidence continues to mount, mere hunches and near-impossible coincidences are not enough for a conviction, so family and police wait for a break or a development in DNA technology. In 2019, possible new hope was brought to this cold-case in the form of the development of a DNA technology. Dr.
Ed Green, of UC Santa Cruz, has built on a technique that was first utilized to extract DNA from fossilized bones. He used this new technology in order to sequence his own DNA from a rootless hair of his. When he finally sequenced the genome from the hair and submitted a saliva sample to compare it against, the code was the same, which is an incredible feat as previously only nuclear dna, not mitochondrial dna could yield such a complete code which could then be uploaded into CODIS and other databases but public and private.
Being able to identify these hairs may become the crucial key to id-ing a suspect. DR. Green however cautions that this technology, in its infancy, is extremely expensive and therefore not able to be provided on a larger level to police for use on cold cases, but hopefully as the technology progresses and becomes more affordable and therefore more readily available.
Detectives go on to state that in May of 2020, two witnesses to Amy’s conversation with an older male out front of Baskin Robbins picked the suspect’s image out of an array of photo line-ups. It is unclear if these two witnesses were the two young friends of Amy or different people. Amy’s father mark continues to hope that new evidence will lead to some answers for him and his family. Amy’s mother died shortly after the murder of her daughter.
Her father, so pained by the memory of losing both his wife and child, has never visited their gravesite, which is located at Highland Memorial Park, in Wisconsin. He perhaps prefers to remember them as they were in life, happy, carefree, alive. Now mother and daughter repose together, eternal sleep for the eternally bonded.
Items that were missing, items that were presumably taken from Amy all those years ago have not been located and police ask anyone who may have seen the unique items attributed to Amy, including her child-sized horse-riding boots or turquoise earrings in the shape of horse heads to come forward.
If you have information about the murder of this innocent ten year old girl, the FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for tips leading to the arrest and conviction in her death. Anyone with information about Amy death is asked to call investigators at 1-877-FBI-OHIO or the Bay Village Police Department at 440-871-1234”
