Cold case victim Susan Mann was trying to recover sister's missing pocketbook when she vanished in 1980, Nassau police say

The last time Susan Mann’s family members saw her alive, she was getting on her bike outside their Hollis, Queens, home, determined to find her sister’s missing pocketbook.

It was Saturday, May 17, 1980.

Unbeknownst to her family, her body was found two years later, on Nov. 4, 1982 — wearing the same clothing the last time they saw her — stuffed in a dumpster behind Cantor Glass Works on North Main Street in Freeport.

More than four decades after her death, Nassau County police, with the help of the FBI’s genealogy investigation program, identified Mann’s remains in March and let her family know what happened to her.

On Thursday, Nassau County Police Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick held a news conference, asking for the public’s help to solve her homicide.

"We've investigated and we've interviewed many, many people, but it's come time now that we'd like to reach out to the public," he said. "We're looking for anybody that would have known her, would have been in the Freeport area during that time in ’82 or anybody that thinks they have some kind of information that would lead to a suspect or any investigative leads toward an arrest."

He said the Crime Stoppers reward had been increased to $25,000 for information on the case.

Mann, who was 15 years old when she disappeared, was wearing two 14-karat gold pendants when she left the house: One was an opal pendant; the other was a gift from her grandmother, a circle with the initial "K" inside. She wore a zip-up jacket with blue and yellow stripes, blue jeans and sandals.

Mann had borrowed the purse from her sister and taken it to school the day before, when someone had stolen it.

"She was attempting to recover that for her sister," Fitzpatrick said. "You can imagine the difficulties between sisters when you lose something."

The captain dispelled theories that Mann had run away from home.

"She comes from a very good family," he said. "The reason she left the house that day was to recover this pocketbook that her sister was obviously upset she lost."

In 1982, a 16-year-old worker at the glass factory found Mann's body in the company’s dumpster behind the shop. He said the container was locked during the night and they believe she was placed there sometime during the day, police said.

Police believe she had been killed soon after she went missing and was buried somewhere before being placed in the dumpster. Fitzpatrick said he did not know why she had been dug up and moved.

Investigators do not believe that someone at the glass shop was connected to the crime.

Fitzpatrick would not say why investigators believe she had met with foul play, but he said more information could come out.

Mann was buried in an anonymous grave in the Cemetery of Holy Rood in Westbury, where she remained until 2023, when investigators exhumed her body to do further DNA testing.

It wasn’t until March that the FBI lab was able to match Mann’s DNA to DNA that her sisters had given to investigators.

Fitzpatrick said the case has remained open, but the technology to identify Mann only recently became available.

"It’s a 40-year-old case," he said. "A lot of people may have passed. If we can't solve it or charge somebody with that murder, maybe we can at least get closure to these families to know what happened to their loved one."

The family, who was not at the news conference and could not be reached, said they were appreciative to know what happened to Mann, Fitzpatrick said.

"They were happy. There was sadness. The whole spectrum of emotions," the captain said.