Episode 183: The Disappearance of Doreen Marfeo
34-year-old Doreen Marfeo had a rocky relationship with her husband of 12 years, Stephen Marfeo, and she had recently quit her job at the Rhode Island School of Design where she was a purchasing director to work on their marriage. The two had met in 1976 and married two years later. Stephen worked in the jewelry business and was into cars, especially fast cars, and he also liked lifting weights to blow off some steam. Doreen was described as tidy and punctual with a great relationship with her mother Laura, and she and Stephen seemed perfect for one another with how similar their personalities were. However, Stephen was reported to be controlling, calling Doreen’s mother’s house to confirm that Doreen was actually there, and calling her at work before she quit her job to make sure she was there when she said she would be.
According to Stephen, Doreen had started to change from a confident, self-assured woman to being “a nervous wreck” and having mood swings, personality changes and frequent panic attacks. Despite this, Stephen failed to report Doreen missing for two entire days after he came back to their Johnston, Rhode Island home from work on March 29th, 1990 and found Doreen, as well as her suitcase, some clothing items and $600 missing.
When police were finally called, they arrived at the home to find that there were no signs of forced entry into the home and no signs of a struggle. They also found that Doreen had left behind her car, a 1984 Ford Tempo, her toothbrush, hair curlers, and her two pet cats that she adored. She also hadn’t touched any of the $50,000 in her and Stephen's joint bank accounts.
Police then learned that Stephen had been dipping into the account to make some purchases of his own: he had been hiring private detectives. When confronted about this, Stephen told police that he only hired the private investigators to follow Doreen around for “a few hours a month” for eleven months so that he could keep track of her and make sure that she was safe. Police immediately grew suspicious that Stephen was paying investigators to follow Doreen, yet he had failed to report her missing for over 48 hours. Police felt strongly that Stephen hired the private investigators to attempt to catch Doreen in the act of having an affair, especially given his controlling behavior and phone calls when Doreen was at work or her mom’s house.
Several months went by without any new developments in the case until June 13th, 1990. Police received two anonymous letters that had been written on a typewriter. The first letter said that Stephen strangled Doreen on the day of her disappearance, March 29th, and then dumped her body in a pond in Providence, Rhode Island. Part of this letter stated “Stephen got hot under the collar. He made for couch and strangled Doreen...on a narrow dirt road he stopped and deposited wife's body in reeds in a pond.” The second letter accused Doreen of having affairs with some of her co-workers and even named several men. Part of the letter stated “Although on the outside, she personifys class, beauty and professionalism, in reality she is nothing more than a cheap Harlot...Her promotions were achieved by her sexual prowess rather then management or leadership abilities.”
Police spoke to the men named in the letter, and all were surprised that their names had come up as they had not had any kind of sexual relationship with Doreen, and several hadn’t spoken to her in years. This indicated to police that whoever wrote this letter was likely attempting to defame Doreen. Police reached out to psycholinguistics expert Dr. Murray Miron of Syracuse University to help them determine who may have written these letters. Dr. Miron said that whoever wrote the letters was close to Doreen and knew her very well, and he also said that the letters were written to intentionally mislead the police. Dr. Miron said that he believes the author of the letters was Stephen, and that he “was a logical suspect in the murder of his wife.” Stephen attempted to say that police were trying to frame him as he was the likely suspect, but police then seized several typewriters that Stephen had access to and determined that the typewriter used to write the letters was a typewriter from Stephen's mother's house. It was clear Stephen wrote these letters himself.
The case stalled and continued to stall, and years went by without any new information or breaks in the case. Doreen’s family continued to wonder what happened to Doreen.
Nine years after Doreen went missing, in July of 1999, Stephen told his family that he was going on vacation and was going to get his life together. Shortly after he got back, on July 30th, Stephen sought out an ex-girlfriend, 38-year-old Laura Vincent. He pulled out a gun and fatally shot her multiple times before turning the gun on her new boyfriend, 56-year-old Salvatore Puleo, who he badly wounded. He then got in his car and drove to the Barkhamsted Reservoir, a secluded and quiet reservoir in Connecticut. A state trooper began to approach Stephen to see if he was safe, and Stephen took out his gun and shot himself in the head.
Police found a suicide note that Stephen wrote to his mom, saying he felt guilty for Doreen’s disappearance and that he was alive "nine years too long.” He didn’t elaborate further in the note, but police feel that Stephen is responsible for Doreen’s disappearance. The reservoir where Stephen committed suicide was searched for any evidence, but nothing came up. The reservoir had been searched two other times since Doreen disappeared after two planes crashed in 1991 and 1996 in the surrounding area, and nothing in relation to Doreen’s disappearance was found during either search.
At the time of her disappearance, Doreen was 5’7” and 115 lbs. She has brown hair and green eyes. She is pale with lots of freckles. For distinguishing factors, one of her front teeth is capped, she has pierced ears and a large chicken pox scar on the front of one of her calves. She has a strong Massachusetts accent. Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of Doreen Marfeo is asked to please call the Johnston Police Department at 401-231-4210.
Image sources:
unsolved mysteries.fandom.com - “Doreen Marfeo”